The Fallen
by The Mr Zed
Summary: As time and space collide, those from across dimensions must survive in a world of the dead. Includes many franchises crossing over. Rated M for violence, language, and sexual situations.
1. Chapter 1: Genesis (START OF SEASON 1)

**Chapter 1: Genesis**

 **1**

There was no time to react. It was as though a wave had crashed over everything, as though the world were drowning. No one had the time nor the energy to escape their fates as the worlds they knew seemed to collide in one everlasting explosion. It rocked the multiverse, rocked time itself, sending them all to one location. Spread out, separated, they were all forced to do what they could. To survive the world that they were now in.

A world ruled by the dead.

 **2**

 _Drip…drip…drip_

 _Chica left the kitchen sink on, I guess._

 _Drip…drip…drip_

 _Wait…_

Another droplet of water hit Foxy's snout. The droplet splattered on him. He gasped sharply as his brain registered how cold it was. Just how fucking _freezing_ the liquid was. His eyes flew open, though only one cloud see. Panicked for a moment, Foxy relaxed, realizing it was merely the black eye patch that he wore for the children in the restaurant. He lifted his hooked right hand up to the patch. The metal claw dipped in his fur, then hooked around the eyepatch's black band. With a quick pull, Foxy pulled the band off, a short twinge echoing as he did so.

With both eyes open he stood up. The realization that he wasn't in the restaurant was the first thing to hit him. Oh, no, brothers and sisters, this wasn't Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where kids and grownups alike could come for fun and delight, or whatever the motto this time around had been. He wasn't cozy in his Pirate Cove, waiting behind the curtain for the next day, fooling around with the night guard as he would often do with the other animatronics. No calendar with the year 1993 on it this time. Just a damp forest. A damp, soundless forest, the white glow of the full moon above the only source of light that allowed Foxy to see.

The second thing to hit him was his jaw. When they had unpackaged him in the restaurant, the crew had fucked up his jaw. It had been dangling loosely, sometimes snapping closed for a moment before hanging back down in its limp, dead state. But now, as he moved it up and down, it felt fine. The way it moved felt strange though. Almost too natural.

The third realization; he was different. He wasn't an animatronic anymore; he was just as flesh and blood as the people that had made him. He flexed his paw, running a thumb over his unsheathed, yellow claws. He sheathed them, then put his hook flat on his brown pant leg at the knee. He got up, feeling the crack of bones that hadn't moved in so long. _Probably because they weren't there before,_ the anthropomorphic fox thought.

He was up, a shirtless humanoid fox, no articles of clothing but brown pants shredded at the knees, an eyepatch and a hook. Foxy moved his paw towards the hook. He ran a finger down the shiny metal of the object, feeling how clean it felt. The only blemish on the hook was a small particle of rust at the tip, though Foxy barely took notice of that. He ran his hand down to the elastic string that allowed him to wear the eyepatch. It was nothing but a kiddie one, one that could be found at a pirate-themed birthday. _Guess I won't be needing this anymore,_ the fox thought. _Or the pirate accent._

He was about to toss the eyepatch to the ground. Instead, he stuffed it into his pant pocket. He didn't have a completely valid reason for his action, but, hey sentimental value never hurt all that much. It reminded him of the restaurant, the one he had a dreadful feeling he would never see again. After all, he was no longer an animatronic; he was a freak-show. Where was everyone else? Freddy, Bonnie… Chica? Where were they? Were they in this strange new world as well, transformed into these strange beings?

Foxy took a tentative step forward. He felt the long grass under the tree softly caress the bottom of his foot. His foot slowly lowered to the ground, where he felt mud squish in between his toes. He flexed his toes back and forth, able to feel the squishy substance underneath him. He lifted the foot up, feeling the mud slowly peel from his skin, plopping onto the ground with a soft smack.

He put his foot back down on the wet surface once again. Then, he stepped his other foot outwards, slowly making his way across the marshy grassland. The urge to shout to see if any other living thing was in his vicinity taunted his lips, though he remained silent. It was smarter to stay quiet; it was impossible to know how dangerous this new area was. The only positive thing seemed to be the moonlight cascading down on the marsh.

Foxy lifted his head up to the sky. Stars twinkled peacefully in the night. The largest object in the night sky, though, was the moon. The cratered object was sitting in the center of the sky, a blemished orb that acted like the night's lightbulb. It seemed almost unnaturally bright, the way that it shined like a giant flashlight onto the marsh. Though Foxy didn't know the workings of the moon; he had sat in a shipping crate or cove with a wooden sign reading "Out of Order" in crude black paint all of his animatronic life. The only thing he did know about the moon was what it being at the center of the sky meant; midnight.

His feet splotched on the sloppy ground as he continued left of the tree he had woken up under. He turned back after seven paces, his eyes observing the lonely tree. Adjacent to it was another tree, this one showing off rotted bark and hanging, snapped branches. It seemed to have been hollowed out by hungry insects, intent on feeding off of what remained of the bark. As Foxy began to turn his head around, he heard a small snap and a quick crunch. Turning back, he observed that one of the dead tree's branches had fallen off, crunching on the ground below.

Foxy turned his attention away from where he had awoken. He looked out to what he presumed would be his future. All that he saw were more trees with dew hanging from their leaves. The dew coupled with the moons illumination caused the green plates to sparkle like tiny stars dotted on them. Foxy observed a drop falling off, plopping soundlessly to the ground. To him, it was beautiful. _Chica doesn't know what she's missing._

He stopped, twenty-three paces from where he had awoken. The though had come so naturally; Chica would have loved seeing that. Chica seemed to be about the detail in things, seeing the best in it. She had helped him through a rough patch, said patch being when he was deemed "Unserviceable" by Fazbear Entertainment. The jaw on that animatronic is too dangerous, they said. The kids won't like it hanging off to one side like that.

Foxy had been sitting sadly in the Cove, 1 AM, his eyes closed, his knees up to his chest. The thought of becoming "scrap metal" had passed his mind only briefly. Though he had still thought about it as a possibility. That was when the curtains to the entrance of his home wavered. He had looked up, noticing a shadow passing by the curtain. "Whoever it is, leave," he said in a rusted voice.

Instead, the visitor had entered. A larger shadow passed over Foxy as they pulled the curtains back. Foxy had taken no notice, burying his head into his knees, unwilling to take the advice nor the comfort from whoever it was that was dishing either out for him. But the intruder still came in. They kneeled down next to Foxy who had just decided at that point to take it as it came. He refused to look up until the figure had to pry his head away from his knees.

The visitor had been Chica, the chicken animatronic that sat out at the front stage, able to perform. She looked at him with sadness and remorse in her eyes. He thought he saw a dash of pity in there for him as well. "Foxy," she began in her rustic voice. "I know that this isn't what you… expected to happen…"

"Yeah, no shit," he grumbled.

"But I need you to know something," Chica continued. "And I want you to know that this is coming from me and me alone. I'm here for you, Foxy. I'm here for you whenever you need someone to talk to, to cry next to… to hold…"

Foxy merely grunted. Chica looked down, disappointment crossing her robotic face. She had turned to leave and was at the curtains when Foxy raised his head. "Chica?"

The animatronic chicken turned back to him expectantly. Foxy sighed. "Ya know," he said slowly. "You might be right. I might need someone to talk to… I guess."

And so she had sat next to him and they had discussed what had happened to him. They had discussed the pain, the fear of never being remembered, the distress of never being accepted by Freddy or Bonnie because of his injury. There had been the animatronic equivalent of tears then; small, rusty sniffs escaping him. Chica had held him close, and in that moment he had felt a feeling he couldn't quite place. It was gone in only a moment.

"Foxy, it's okay," she said, her soothing voice playing in the Cove. "I already talked to Freddy and Bonnie about talking to you. They said they wanted to tell you that they know what you're going through, and that they want to be able to help you."

Foxy had thanked her. She had stayed with him until six, and by the time the sun had started to rise she was gone, ready for another day of entertaining children while Foxy sat alone in his Cove. But it had helped, and he had felt less abandoned than he had in weeks. It gave him enough courage to come out of the Cove every once and a while and chat it up with Freddy and Bonnie. Chica had fixed a broken animatronic without screws or bolts. And he had felt grateful for that.

Foxy quickly shook Chica from his mind. This was no time to be thinking about the past; now was the time to get moving.

He hadn't taken one step before he heard a faint crackling from behind him. Looking back, Foxy saw a dark, four-legged figure walking slowly towards him. He tensed. Who was this? Was this a trustworthy friend, or a foe he would have to fight? Foxy rose his hook, the moonlight glinting off of it. He wanted to make sure that whoever it was that was approaching him saw that he was armed.

The shadow stopped. Foxy smiled. Words suddenly emitted, quiet, a whisper, from it; "Are you alive?"

"What?" Foxy asked back, a normal voice volume.

The figure suddenly tackled him, a clawed hand going to Foxy's mouth. "Shut up," it whispered. "They'll hear you."

Based on the concern and fright in the figure's voice, Foxy could tell that it had no malicious intent. Still, he was wary as he slowly lowered its hand from his mouth. "Who?" he asked. "And who are you?"

Silence for a moment. The figure seemed to be deliberating as to what to tell this anthropomorphic fox. Then, it finally responded. "Name's Spyro the dragon," it said. "And you have quite a bit to learn."

"What does that-."

The shadow suddenly pinned him against a tree, its clawed hand moving back to Foxy's mouth. "Shut up," Spyro whispered. "Don't you hear that?"

"Hear what," Foxy asked through the figure's scaled claw.

"The shuffling," Spyro responded, moving closer to Foxy as he did so. Foxy could see the purple figure's purple eyes wide with fright. Paranoia was swimming in them as it looked back and forth. Its yellow underbelly was close to Foxy's scarlet fur, making the fox a bit uncomfortable. He could see yellow horns protruding from its head. Orange wings were also unfurled on the dragon's body.

 _A dragon. What the fuck. Why not._

"What does it mean?" Foxy whispered to the figure that had him up against the tree.

"Look, I know you're curious and all, and I don't know for sure, but you gotta stay low and keep with me, okay?" The dragon took his hand away from Foxy's mouth. The clawed hand then went to Foxy's paw. The dragon pulled at Foxy's arm, making him lose his balance for a split second. He did not fall, and within a moment he had regained and was keeping up with the dragon. The dragon, seeing that the fox was willingly following him, let go. Foxy continued to quietly run with Spyro.

They halted at a tree close to a quarter mile away from their previous location. While Spyro was gasping air into his lungs, Foxy leaned against a tree, his eyes closed. His head swam with uncertainty at what was happening and why this dragon was so intent on helping him. Where was he? Who was this? What was the danger?

"You okay, man?"

Foxy opened his eyes. Spyro was looking at him, genuine concern in his eyes. "I know this is a lot to take in," he admitted. "But we've both been awake for the same amount of time. Have you seen them yet?"

"Seen what?" Foxy asked, annoyance creeping into his voice. He was sick of this dragon's charade. Was he or was he not going to tell Foxy what was going on? Was he just going to stand here, ominous and unspecific, telling Foxy to just trust him, he knew what was happening? And, more importantly, what was going on?

Then he heard it, faint but clear. A twig snapping close by.

Foxy turned. His eyes widened in shock as a limber, lumbering human sauntered towards him. He sighed, putting a paw to his head and shaking his head back and forth in disappointment. Wherever this dragon came from, there were obviously no humans around. Foxy, on the other hand, knew what they were. They had created him, had toyed with him, had laughed with him, had fixed him, had broken him. They were just the same as anything else; a species.

"That's just a-"

Foxy's explanation was cut off by Spyro lunging himself at the lanky creature. A guttural growl emitted from the creature's mouth, and suddenly Foxy understood. It didn't matter whether or not this thing was a human. It was dangerous. This was the danger. But humans didn't growl, did they? Foxy thought back to all the times Freddy Fazbear's Pizza had housed groups of humans, chatting and giggling, children running around and playing arcade games. Some would growl, but mostly just children playing make-believe.

Then, its eyes met Foxy. They were pure yellow, no irises nor whites; just two yellow orbs in the center of the creature's head. That was when Foxy noticed the tone of its skin; a normal shade of blue, not very dark, not very light. Slicked back black hair. And Foxy knew this was no human. It was a fact that registered just as Spyro dug his claws into the creature's head, splattering crimson through the air of the night. Spyro pulled his claws out, a _shing_ echoing through the night as the creature's body collapsed to the ground. Spyro turned back towards Foxy. At first, relief lit up his eyes. Then, fear. "Behind you!" Spyro shouted.

Foxy turned. He was less than six inches away from another black-haired blue creature with eyes as yellow as the sun. Instinctively, he grabbed the creature's wrist with his hand, then raised his hook. It gleamed in the moonlight for a moment before Foxy instinctively smashed it down on the thing's head. He heard a splat, then a _shing_ as the creature's body fell limply to the ground.

Foxy stared at it, wide-eyed in horror. It was dead. And he'd killed it. He felt his body start to shake. He could feel fear coursing through his newly acquired veins. Why was this so scary to him? It wasn't like he'd not given a night guard a heart attack before and they dropped dead on the spot. Because that had happened before… before all of this.

He turned to Spyro, his jaws agape. Spyro looked at him, his purple face void of any emotion. "I guess I should tell you what I know then," he said. "Follow me."

 **3**

Ten minutes later, Foxy had scaled the tree. Due to his lack of climbing skills since this was the first time his body was even able to climb, he had carefully made his way up the branches, extra effort required. Spyro, who had flown up to the tree's upper branches, the one he was perched on being the only one sturdy enough to hold body weight, had shouted down a dozen times asking if Foxy needed any assistance in reaching the branch he was on. Foxy, determined to get up there on his own ( _I'm not broken anymore),_ had called back that he had it. These calls had attracted about a half dozen or so of the blue-skinned dead-brained humans, which surrounded the tree. Foxy, even from his high vantage point, was still able to make out some sort of hunger in their eyes.

Finally, he was up, his legs dangling from the tree branch as he sat next to the purple dragon. Spyro was staring up at the moonlight, a downcast look in his eyes. Foxy glanced up at the orb as well, then looked back at the distraught dragon. "What is it?" Foxy asked. He knew that, if those things below them were the enemy, then they may as well try to be friends.

"Nothing," Spyro mused. "I guess just… ugh, this is gonna sound so cheesy, and I'm sorry if it does."

"Lost a girl?" Foxy asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them from spilling.

Spyro looked at him, a hint of red entering his cheeks. Then, in a swift flash, it was gone. "Yeah," he admitted. "She… her name's Cynder and I'm just worried. Because, either way it's a bad situation."

"Why?" Foxy asked.

The dragon shrugged. "Well, on one hand, she could be in this new world with me and I haven't seen her yet. But her in this world… I just can't think of that, ya know? What if she were to die and I would never know? Or what if she's just not here and she's back home, wondering where I've, what, teleported away to or something. I dunno."

"But you do know something," Foxy said, injecting a tone of superiority into his voice. "What is going on?"

Spyro stared at the white glowing rock in the sky as he spoke. "I woke up the screams," he began. "I didn't know what it was at first, because the voice wasn't one that I recognized. They just kept on screeching for help and I had no idea where it was coming from. Then I saw this weird-looking lump, and I swear it looked like a giant pink rabbit in work clothes. But it was a bloody mess. I saw those… things down there. They were eating him. Then they turned their attention on me. I kept striking their stomachs and chests to see if that would take them down, knock them out or something. But nothing but a killing blow to the head did anything. I think the worst part was, when I'd gotten rid of them, the pink bunny thing they'd been eating? He'd risen up, and I thought he was okay but… ugh. He skin had a bluish tint, his eyes were yellow, and he just kept coming at me. So… I did what had to be done." At that point, Spyro looked down at his claws, the tips of which were still bloodied. He continued.

"So from all of this I see a few things. Number one, those things are dangerous. A given. Number two, only hitting their heads kills them. I guess the bunny guy didn't learn. Number three, they kill you, and you become one of them. That's all I know so far. Also, in case you're wondering, I don't know why we're from different dimensions. Yeah, I deduced that fairly early, what with no bunny-man in mine to my knowledge."

"So, what. Do you think some sort of cosmic blast sent a bunch of people from across the multiverse here? Like an effect of bad time travel by someone? Or something?" Foxy asked.

Spyro shrugged. He raised his head back up to the moon. "Who the hell knows," he said. "All I know is dead-brained flesh-eaters down there and a fox and a dragon from two different dimensions up here." He flashed a smile at the fox, who smiled back. The warm embrace of having a friend in this harsh environment made Foxy feel both happy and relieved. And, though he had only known the dragon a short while, he was willing to admit that, yes, he was a friend now.

Spyro suddenly flew into the air. At first, Foxy thought that the dragon had abandoned him. His head turned in circles frantically as he searched for the only living thing in the world he was in. "You-hoo!" a voice sounded from above.

Foxy looked up, then smiled, impressed. The dragon was in the branch above him, leaning against the trunk of the tree, his head down. When he saw that Foxy was looking up at him, his eyes darted down. A smile formed on the dragon's lips. "Wanna try and get up here?" he asked.

Foxy looked down. The ravenous crowd of blue-skinned flesh-cravers was still surrounding the tree. There seemed to be only four instead of the half dozen or so that had been their prior. Foxy turned his head back up to face the dragon. "Nah," he replied. "I don't really want to get eaten today."

Spyro snorted, then turned away from Foxy, leaning his head against the tree and closing his eyes. Foxy did the same, mimicking the dragon's position. He closed his eyes, letting the small gust that had begun to blow ruffle his fur. After a moment of silence, Spyro broke it.

"So, Foxy," he asked from above. "You got a girl?"

Foxy opened his eyes, feeling his face become hot as Chica's face flashed in his mind, then dissipated. "Sort of," Foxy admitted. "I like her, and I'm pretty sure that she likes me. We just haven't exactly… told each other. Though I probably would have if I knew all of this was going to happen. You're lucky, you know that? At least, what's her name, Cynder?"

"Yup," Spyro said from above.

"Right," Foxy replied. "At least Cynder knows you like her. But me and the one I like… we just…"

Foxy trailed off, hoping the dragon would get the message. A moment of silence caused Foxy's heartbeat to pick up. Was he even still there? Foxy was about to check when a response came from above. "I get it. It's complicated and we're both tired. Get some sleep, try not to fall out of the tree, and we'll finish our chat in the morning."

"Sure," Foxy replied.

And so they both closed their eyes, Spyro dreaming of his love Cynder's face, Foxy taking an hour to fall asleep due to the fear of falling out of the tree and into the arms of those that wanted his flesh that waited, yellow-eyed and starving.

 **5**

Day one.

Foxy awoke to the sound of a child screeching into the air. He had been dreaming about the Pizzeria, sitting in the dark in his Cove. He was not alone though; a yellow chicken animatronic sat next to him. Her yellow hand was massaging his knee, rubbing back and forth slowly. Her eyes had met his. He had reached his hook out and was running it down the string of the white bib she had on. The words "Let's Eat!" were printed on it in yellow, blocky lettering, purple outlining each letter, confetti strewn about on it.

Then, he was ripped from his dream by the screeches. At first, he thought it was Freddy or Bonnie. They would always emit a sharp scree when scaring the night guard on duty at the restaurant. Then, he was up. Thankfully, he hadn't fallen from the tree during the night. Before he could comprehend what was happening, Spyro had swooped down. Leaves fluttered about as the dragon picked up speed. Foxy watched as he scooped up two figures from the ground. They were screeching due to the dozen or so shambling creatures that had surrounded them. They had been trapped in a circle before Spyro had swooped in for the rescue.

The two figures had stopped screaming immediately after Spyro had picked them up. Foxy was only able to glimpse them for a second. They were both like him; upright walking, presumably talking, animals. One, he noticed, was a blue catlike figure wearing a slightly-tattered light brown sweatshirt and gray pants. The other figure was a smaller pink rabbit wearing an orange dress that covered her full body. Both of their eyes were only made of white sclera's and black pupils. They both trained these eyes on Foxy for a moment. He saw confusion float through the eyes of the cat creature. Said confusion was still there when Spyro landed on the branch Foxy was on and when he placed the two down.

"Um, thanks," the cat said, rubbing the back of his neck with one of his paws.

"Don't worry about it," Spyro replied. "Name's Spyro."

"Oh, um, I'm Gumball," the cat introduced himself. "And this is my little sister Anais."

The small rabbit girl waved at Spyro. She then turned to Foxy, who she eyed curiously. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Name's Foxy," the fox said, leaning his head back against the tree. "I know, cliché name. But I was an animatronic made to entertain children."

"Wait, what?" Gumball asked, his right eyebrow moving up in confusion as he eyed Foxy carefully.

"The simplest way we know how to explain," Spyro interjected, "is that there was some sort of temporal shift in time and space that caused some people from across the multiverse to end up here. At least, that's the only thing that makes sense to me."

Foxy nodded his agreement. "So," he asked. "What were you kids doing alone? Did you end up here without parents?"

"Yeah," Gumball said. His eyes quickly filled with tears. They began to run down as he continued to talk. "Ya see, me and Anais, we ended up finding each other last night. Some luck, but we found… we found our dad's body. Big pink rabbit, like Anais, just, ya know, bigger. And he… he was dead. We found him being eaten by those blue things down there and it just… I'd never say this if I didn't see that but… it fucked me up."

Anais gasped at Gumball's use of foul language. He turned back to his sister. "Sorry, sis," he said, his face reddening a bit. He turned back to the fox and dragon. "But that's it. That's all I know. Ugh, I just hope…" he trailed off.

"Kid, it's okay to talk to us," Spyro said.

"How do I even know that?" Gumball's eyes suddenly flooded with fear.

"Because of those things down there," Foxy piped up, nodding his head down towards the dozen or so yellow-eyed figures below. "We all know that they kill. But what's worse is that, when they kill you, they don't just eat you. No, you also _become_ one of them. And none of us wants to become one of them. No matter how much the thought of killing these things pains me, it looks like that's the only way we can live and find the people we lost, if they're even here. We can get through this if we work together."

Silence. Then, Gumball mumbled, "My brother, Darwin, and my mom. They might be out here. I don't know if they are, but they might be."

Foxy nodded. "Then we all have our priorities at the same place. Find more people. If we travel in a fairly big group, we can probably be safe. The more of us, the less of them. Because… we have to kill them."

"But what if one of us dies?" Anais asked, fear piercing her gaze.

Foxy felt his heart shatter, to see these children in such distress. In the restaurant, whenever he saw an unhappy child, he wished that he could go to them and make them feel better. The only perk of this world seemed to be that. "You won't die," Foxy assured her. "None of us will as long as we keep our wits about us and make sure none of them get us. As long as we stick together, nothing bad is going to happen."

"One last question," Spyro said.

"Go for it," Foxy replied.

"Those… uh, Shamblers, I guess we can call them? They're surrounding the tree so we don't exactly have a way down. I can carry the kids but you? You're a bit too heavy. So… how do you get down?"

Foxy smiled, the question forming an idea in his head. He looked down at the group of Shamblers below him. They were all moaning and growling up at the tree, the craving of fresh meat embedded in their eyes. Foxy smiled at the pitiful creatures, then turned back to the three other survivors. "Kids," Foxy said, turning his attention to Gumball and Anais. "Think you'll be okay up here for a few minutes?"

 **6**

"Ready?"

Spyro gave Foxy a thumbs-up from the ground. He was about twenty yards away from the blue horde of Shamblers that had surrounded the base of the tree. At Foxy's shout, they had begun to claw at the tree more eagerly. Foxy could see from his height their rotten fingernails peeling off as they scraped them against the dry bark. It caused a bit of bile to rise in his throat, which slowly sunk down. _I guess that's what a kid feels like when they eat too much cake,_ he thought. A short chuckle came out of him, though none of his companions heard it.

"Hey, you sacks of crap!" Spyro shouted as loud as he could at the Shamblers. Instantly, the black-haired figures, all of them looking like clones, began moving towards Spyro. They stumbled on their lanky legs towards him, and the dragon smiled. His eyes met Foxy's quickly. Foxy nodded just as a Shambler moved incredibly close to Spyro.

Spyro lashed out, his claws glinting in the mid-morning sunlight. They sliced through the leathery skin and soft bone of one of the Shambler's heads, a sickening crunch emitting from its head as the brain shut down. Spyro pulled his claw out, letting the body drop. Another Shambler tripped over it. It tried to reach out and catch Spyro in its hands, though Spyro moved out of its way too quickly for him to be caught by the hungry beast.

By then Foxy was taking them out from behind. His hook seemed to be made of some sort of reinforced steel, as it was easily poking through the heads of the lumbering beasts and destroying their brains quickly and efficiently. It wasn't even that hard to pull the hook out; just one light tug and the weapon came out of the thing's cranium. Efficiency, folks!

In total, Foxy had taken out five Shamblers, getting into a rhythmic pattern of sinking his hook in, pulling it sharply out. Spyro had taken out six others. At one point, one of them had grappled with him, causing Foxy to have to push through the remaining three from behind in order to kill the one Spyro was having trouble with. Spyro had thanked him with a nod. Then, they had killed the remaining two quickly. Sink then pull.

At last, the final body fell. Spyro had killed the last one, his claws sinking, and then being pulled out. It collapsed on top of another Shambler, its body tripping over the one in its way. Foxy looked at Spyro, who was staring back at him. Gratefulness was in both of their eyes, and a message passed between the two; _we're in this together. We help one another. We get to live._

Spyro turned away from Foxy, his gaze moving towards Gumball and Anais. The two were still in the tree, their legs dangling down from the branch they were sitting on limply. They reminded Foxy of strands of spaghetti dangling off of a table, something he had seen at the restaurant before… this.

Merely a blur, Spyro leapt into the air, his wings straightening out on his back for a moment before he began to flap. In three flaps he was back on the tree. He too Anais in his arms, then grabbed Gumball by the back of his shirt. "Hey!" Gumball protested. "This is uncomfortable!"

"Sorry, kid," Spyro's muffled voice said. "You'll be on the ground soon anyways."

With that, Spyro dropped from the tree, spreading his wings out. For a quick moment, it seemed to Foxy that the purple dragon was going to crash land, injuring himself along with the children he had in his grasp. What worried Foxy more was the fact that, if anyone became seriously injured, there was no way for them to get medical help; they were on their own.

The moment of doubt passed as Spyro landed gracefully on the ground. The claws of his back feet dug into the ground momentarily. He lowered Anais to the ground carefully before putting his front feet on the ground along with Gumball. A muttered grumble emitted from the cat's mouth as he dropped to the ground face first. He stood up, wiping mud from his face, then glared at the dragon. Spyro shrugged, then smiled. "What?" he asked. "We _did_ sort of save your lives back there."

Gumball opened his mouth to protest. Then, thoughtfulness overtook his face. He seemed to consider it quickly, then shut his trap again. Anais, on the other hand, had something to say. "So, what do we do now?"

The question was one that Spyro had obviously not considered. He looked over at Foxy, the hope for a suggestion vivid and apparent in his face. "Okay," Foxy said. "Here's what we're gonna do. We can move in any direction we want, though I would highly suggest that we move either west or east. To the north it'll get colder and to the south it'll get hotter. And personally, in the case that no one else is around, I wouldn't want to get stuck in sucky temperature.

"Now, we have two options. East or west. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I don't care which way we go so long as we go. Any suggestions?"

"West!" Gumball and Anais said in unison. They turned to each other, seemingly shocked that they were agreeing on something, then turned their attention back to Foxy.

Foxy looked at Spyro, who was also looking at him in the same way the children were. It felt odd to Foxy, until he realized in the split second before he spoke where he'd seen that expression before. _That's how we used to look at Freddy. He was our leader._ The thought dissipated to the back of Foxy's mind as he asked Spyro, "West sound good to you?"

"Yeah," Spyro said. "But I'd feel a bit safer to know why."

"Well," Anais explained. "East is in the opposite direction of where we woke up, Gumball and I. So, if that's the case, then there might be more people west than there are east."

"Yeah," Foxy said, scratching the back of his head. "I woke up in the west too. Probably better to stay on semi-familiar ground."

Spyro nodded. "Same," he said. "West it is then!"

The group marched off, unknowingly sealing their fate as they did so. Unbeknownst to them, east would have taken them to a small river that ran from north to south. Had they gone north, they would have come across an abandoned train track leading to a row of desolate boxcars. Had they followed the river south, they would have come across another group of four, hungry and scared, willing already to do anything to survive.

Anything.

 **7**

They walked.

The sun was almost in the center of the sky when Anais complained about being hungry. Gumball chirped up about his hunger the moment his sister had mentioned it, though he did not whine it loudly as Anais had, throwing her head back and wailing like a spoiled child. Spyro had promised that, soon, they would find food.

The marsh seemed to stretch on endlessly. Even with Foxy's tree and the large rabbit's body far behind them, the group still had no way of knowing just where in the marsh they had woken up. Had they gone in the opposite direction, the marsh would have given way to a grassy field leading to a river. Instead, they had chosen the other way, where the marsh seemed to stretch on endlessly.

In that time, the group had managed to get to know each other. Anais was the opposite of her brother, besides being a rabbit. She was a studious, patient little girl whose head always seemed to be in an intellectually stunning book. She had been doing puzzles for a year, said puzzles stretching to be 3,000 pieces if begged by her mother, who saw her daughter as a shining star when compared to Gumball. Anais, however, had admitted a half hour before hunger began to make her whine, that she sometimes wished she was "dumb" like Gumball in order to avoid so much attention and praise.

Gumball, on the other hand, was an attention-seeker. Dumb was the only adjective that Anais seemed able to use to convey Gumball's entire personality into one word. Apparently, Gumball Waterson was notorious for having accidentally severely damaging or destroying the city of Elmore with his ragtag group of friends. Most notably was his adopted brother Darwin, who had been his pet fish before one day sprouting legs and becoming his brother. Though Gumball trailed off when discussing him, most likely, Foxy believed, thinking about the possibility of his whereabouts.

Spyro, as far as Foxy could tell, was the archetype for selflessness. According to him, he had stopped a dark dragon named Malefor from destroying his homeland. This had been with the help of a dragon of his age that was under Malefor's control, Cynder, which he had broken out of Malefor's control. Eventually, after countless hours of waged battle and being frozen for three years, Spyro had fallen in love with who he had saved. And that was all he could remember before ending up in the wretched world that consumed them. He could remember Cynder muttering something to him before a white light had brought him here, but he couldn't remember what.

"How about you, Foxy," Spyro asked. "What's your story?"

So Foxy had told them everything. About the broken jaw, the murder spree that had happened at the restaurant, how he was in love with the only person that was willing to approach him and talk with him that he didn't have to approach because of his deformity. And that he had no idea what had happened. He said that he might have fallen asleep and woken up here, but he didn't fully believe it. Not for a damn second.

When he had finished, silence had followed for a moment. Then, Gumball had piped up. "Wow, you guy's lives have sucked worse than mine. Girl problems are the only thing that really makes us… similar… I guess…" he had trailed off and stayed silent until Anais' unhappy protests had shaken the air.

Spyro's promise of finding food soon had not turned out to be an empty one; the group found a small patch of a dozen apple trees sitting solemnly in the marsh. Red apples glowed in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like golden stars in the night sky. With a pang, Foxy thought of Chica, the way her golden metal would glint off of the dim light located in his Cove. The thought ceased though, when he picked one of the apples. He bit his jaw into it, feeling the juice of the fruit flow down his throat. That had made him realize how empty his new stomach was; it was a sick feeling, one that caused his legs to feel slightly weakened. _Hunger sucks,_ he thought as he bit into the apple again. He eventually had gnawed two of them down to the core.

The group had conveniently discovered a bloody backpack laying against a tree. There was a hand next to it that Foxy disposed of before Gumball or Anais could catch a glimpse of it. Foxy unzipped one of the pack's zippers, feeling around for something. He caught hold of a metal object, reminding him faintly of being an animatronic. He pulled it from the pack. Gumball's breath hitched. "That's a gun!" he shouted. "Holy crap!"

Foxy turned towards Gumball. "I know what a gun is," Foxy said. He'd heard about them from some children and from gun-owning parents who talked about them in the restaurant. He knew how to eject the chamber of the gun, which he did carefully, pointing it away from anyone, with his hook. He knew it would take practice to do it faster, but nonetheless, it worked fine just the same. It popped out. Foxy counted five rounds in the gun, then put the chamber back in. He zipped the backpack up, putting it around his back, the gun still in his hand. Gumball and Anais looked warily at the fox. Foxy smiled. "This thing's just in case we run into a lot of those things," he explained. "Now unzip this pack and stuff it with apples; we need food for the road."

The kids and Spyro had obeyed. In a half hour, the pack was sticking out, and Foxy guessed there were about ten pounds of apple in there. The bag could have fit more, but Spyro hadn't allowed it. "In case we find water, or anymore of those, whatchamacallit's… guns?" he said.

The group trekked away from the apples, unaware that a large group of Shamblers was moving east.

Right towards them.

 **8**

The sun had almost blinked over the horizon when they saw them. Shamblers; over two dozen of them making their way towards the four living individuals. Their mouths were agape, all of them dripping clear fluid. One grunted, hanging its arm loosely out towards the group. Foxy saw this, shuddering. It was clear from the look in Spyro and Anais' eyes that they had seen the clear communication between corpses as well. One of the Shamblers near the one that had pointed stared, cocking its head like a curious dog. Its eyes suddenly locked on Gumball's and it uttered a guttural screech. The other Shamblers began to screech in unison as well, and did so as they slowly made their way to the preparing group.

Foxy cocked the gun back, hearing a slight click as the bullet was readied to be fired. Spyro flung his wings out, standing in front of the kids protectively, close to the ground in a crouch. He had his claws visible. They were glinting in the twilight, a set of weapons that could be used easily on a rotted corpse like those of the Shamblers.

Foxy walked just as slowly as the Shamblers, attempting to match each step with theirs. He had it in his head, what he would do. He would wait until the Shamblers were only a few yards away, perhaps as close as five or six, then he would commence firing. He would fire three rounds as carefully as he could, aiming at their heads each time, before he would start to use his hook. The last two bullets had to be saved in the case of an emergency. What if one of them was grappling with Gumball or Anais and he and Spyro were too far away to save them? One quick shot from the gun _blam_ and it would be taken care of.

Foxy turned towards Spyro. Fear glazed over the dragon's eyes as they approached the army of shuffling blue figures. "You gonna be okay?" Foxy inquired.

Spyro looked up at him. Though Spyro was normally half of Foxy's upright height, at a crouch he was almost at the level of the kids. They continued to walk slowly, keeping in pace with the Shamblers. "I dunno," Spyro confessed. "I mean, there had to be at least two dozen of those things there, right?"

"Yeah," Foxy agreed, observing the Shamblers in front of his quickly. Spyro was right; he could count twenty-four heads from where he stood. But there could easily be more than two dozen of them in that herd. Just because they weren't visible didn't mean they weren't there. "At least," Foxy mumbled. Gumball's gaze snapped up to him. Foxy met it sternly. The blue cat looked back down as the four of them continued to match the pace of the Shamblers.

Foxy felt the worry pinch his gut. Then, the pinch became stronger. He had a bad feeling about this. He and Spyro could take out a dozen Shamblers on their own, but could they take out more than that? After all, just the sheer number of them could overpower them, and there had been a close call with only half of what they were about to face. Could they do it? The question rang in Foxy's mind. On the one hand, they could get lucky, in which case, yes. Yes, they could do it. But on the other, they could get unlucky. No. No, they could not do it.

 _Guess we'll just have to wait and see how this turns out._

It was another fifteen minutes of walking before they two groups got close enough to one another for Foxy to commence firing. In that time of walking, he had quickly conversed with Spyro about what to do with the kids. So, a plan was formed; Foxy would place the kids in a branch on a tree of this never-ending marsh. They would be safe up there. Foxy would hold the horde back by firing three shots, aiming for the heads with each one. Then, Spyro would swoop back down and claw at the heads from the sky. He would, however, have to land at Foxy's side at some point, as the Shambler's would most likely take notice and try to rip him apart from the sky. Spyro said he would do this, though his eyes told Foxy that there was a chance he would not out of fear.

The first Shambler was taken down. _BLAM!_ The gun went off like a bomb, the bullet passing through the skull of the first lumbering figure effortlessly, careening out of the back of its skull and burying itself in the skull of another. After this first shot, Spyro scooped the kids up and flew up to the nearest tree, shouting "Who-hoo, two for one!" as he did so.

Foxy backed up a few steps. _BLAM!_ The second bullet. This one managed to lodge itself into another Shambler's throat. Unluckily for Foxy, a few Shamblers had fallen, tripping on the two corpses Foxy had laid to rest in the marsh. This fall had caused all of the Shamblers in front of the stumbling ones to stumble forward as well. This caused Foxy's aim to go off, and for the Shamblers to move closer to him.

Foxy looked up as he backed away from the horde, seeing the purple dragon flying in the air. Spyro's wings were translucent in the fading sunlight as he swooped down on the horde. His claws raked deep in their skulls as they all groaned and growled in protest. He was at Foxy's side in an instant. He slashed at the closest figure, causing confusion to cloud its face for a moment before it dropped to the ground. In total, Spyro had killed six Shamblers. However, this did not help with stalling the horde, as the ones he killed besides the one that way laying in front of him at that moment had been in the back.

The remaining sixteen Shamblers stuck their arms out. Not only did this make it tougher for Foxy and Spyro to hit them without the arms dragging them in for a strangle, but it also caused the front row of four to move closer, pushed by the outstretched arms behind them. Spyro gasped sharply as the closest Shambler swiped its arms at him. He then uttered a small, surprised shriek as Foxy's gun went off. _BLAM!_ The corpse swayed, then fell. Fifteen to go.

Spyro suddenly flew into the air, his wings flapping dust into Foxy's eyes momentarily. For an instant, Foxy was unable to see the Shambler that was coming towards him, arms outstretched, tongue lolling. Luckily, he had opened his eyes just in time. He got up close to the figure, allowing the arms to wrap around him as he sunk his hook into its head. The arms uncoiled from Foxy's figure as the dead thing dropped. Fourteen.

Spyro had flown above the horde, passing by arms that were swinging upwards at the sky. He managed to catch two more of the horde off guard as he swooped above them. One of said Shamblers he had dragged with him when its flesh had caught in his claws. He had shaken it off, causing it to fall on top of another Shambler. Spyro was at the other side of the crowd in an instant. He swiped, taking out one more. Ten more to go.

Foxy fired his gun, the final bullet to whizz into the crowd of Shamblers. It hit one of the far-off figures between the eyes. It fell, its eyes glazed over without emotion. Foxy could feel the adrenaline rushing through his veins, pumping like water from a pipe. He felt so free and alive destroying these threatening things. So much so that he almost didn't hear the yelp from the tree Spyro had placed the kids in.

"Help!"

"ANAIS!"

Foxy turned, observing with terror the small pink rabbit falling from the tree and down below in the horde. Foxy's attention diverted, it gave a Shambler the upper hand. It crashed into him, its arms outstretched as it did so. Foxy could smell its horrid breath as it snapped at him. His mind began to scream. _PULL IT OFF PULL IT OFF IT'S GONNA KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T PULL IT OFF!_

"HOLY FUCK!"

Spyro's voice, followed by the blasts of a pistol. Anais screamed. Foxy could feel the air above him move in a new direction as a blast echoed near his ears. Ringing sounded as the head of the Shambler he had been grappling with exploded. Through the ringing, Foxy could hear more shots being fired into the crowd of figures. A brown shape was flying above them, a pistol in one hand, Anais in the other. The blasts were each hitting the Shamblers in their heads until only two remained. Spyro took the remaining two out as Foxy pushed the body that had fallen on him off.

In the ruin of bodies stood a strange creature with an eagle head. The body was brown-furred and sleek. Its white tail was wavering back and forth. It stood on two talons, its other two holding a gun in one hand, Anais in the other. The strange bird animal dropped Anais softly. The small rabbit-child ran over to Foxy, cowering behind him. The eagle-thing flicked its tail out to its talon, wrapping it around the pistol that was still smoking in it. "Relax," the eagle-thing said in a scratchy voice. "I ain't gonna hurt'cha."

Foxy's gaze quickly flicked to Gumball who was staring wide-eyed at his sister's savior. The eagle-thing smiled up and him slyly, then returned her gaze to Foxy.

"Who are… who are you?" Foxy demanded in a cracking voice.

"Gilda," the eagle-thing responded. "Are any of you bit?"

 **Authors Note: If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I know this isn't a work of great literature or anything, but I thought, "What the hell, I'll write it and see what happens." So… here you go.**

 **A few quick things before I end this; I'm not taking any character suggestions for who shows up on the group's travels. I've already mapped the story out to the end and there isn't much room for a suggested character since they would probably end up getting killed off as soon as they arrive.**

 **I'd also like to say that this story is mainly about surviving in a new environment. That doesn't mean that we won't get answers as to why characters from so many different franchises are on one world. However, it does mean that those answers will not be the main focus. It will, however, get addressed a long ways down the road.**

 **And by a long ways I mean a** _ **long**_ **ways.**

 **I encourage anyone with any thoughts, positive or negative, to review.**


	2. Chapter 2: The Dead Ones

**Chapter 2: The Dead Ones**

 **1**

"Bit?" Foxy asked, standing up, kicking away the body of the Shambler the eagle-thing had so gracefully disposed of. Slick brain matter spilled on the ground, and Foxy heard Anais gag behind him. Foxy, however, refused to move his eyes from the strange figure that stood in front of him.

"Yeah, bit," Gilda repeated, a look of annoyance plastered on her face. "Lemmie guess; you haven't seen what happens when one of these things bites you?"

"We know that if you get killed by one you become one!" Spyro shouted from behind Gilda.

Gilda turned, a glare resting in Spyro's eyes. "No," she corrected. "You don't get killed and become one. You get bit, you become one. Saw it happen to a blue cat lady in our group."

"W…what?"

Everyone on the ground looked up into the tree to their left. Gumball was sitting on the branch, his mouth gaped open, tears slowly making their way from his eyes down his face. Gilda looked up at him with mild annoyance. Foxy then watched as said annoyance morphed into realization. "Oh, no," Gilda whispered. Then, louder; "Her name wasn't… it was Nicole? Nicole Watterson? Oh, shit, kid-"

Gumball threw himself from the tree. Anais let out a short gasp. This time, Foxy turned to her. Her eyes were watering as well, sadness welling up in them. Foxy turned back to the tree. Spyro had flown under, a whoosh that Foxy hadn't observed. The purple dragon had caught the crying blue cat on his back. Gumball lay still on his back, his face down, weeping. Foxy felt a small tug at his pant leg. Looking down, he saw Anais crying into his leg. Foxy felt his heart snap like a twig.

He picked Anais up, prying her from his leg as he did so. He lifted her to his face, looking into her eyes. "I'm so sorry," he whispered before embracing the small rabbit child. She wrapped her ears and arms around his neck as her loud sobs made their way across the marsh. Gilda stood awkwardly between the two parties, looking down at her talons, the gun still in her tail. At last she spoke up.

"Hey, um, listen," she said, scratching the back of her head with her talon. "We gotta get out of here. All the noise we made, it's gonna attract more of these things."

"Where do you suggest we go?" Foxy inquired, turning his attention to the eagle-thing.

"I lead a group about a half hour from here," Gilda explained. "I've been having my second-in-charge keep everything in order. I've been out here since about noon scavenging for supplies and killing some of these ugly bastards along the way. I was on my way back when I saw you people needed some help."

"How many people in your group?" Spyro asked.

Gilda turned his head towards him. "Four," she said. "Including me. But we always need more people. The three back at camp and I? We all met up 'cause of the same idea; we're less vulnerable to these things in numbers."

Foxy looked over at Spyro. Spyro shrugged, said shrug telling Foxy, _What the hell, we'll die out here anyways. Can't sleep in trees forever._ Foxy turned back towards Gilda. He smiled. "Sure," he said. "We'll come with you."

Gilda smiled, happiness swimming in her eyes. "Cool," she replied. "We need as many survivors as possible. I'll fly low, lead you to our campsite, 'kay?"

"Sure," Spyro replied. "Just one last question. What _are_ you?"

Gilda smirked slyly, her golden eyes locked on Spyro's. "Griffin," she replied. "Half eagle, half lion. Now let's skip the useless shit and get going."

Foxy nodded. And so the walk began.

 **2**

Foxy, Spyro, Gumball and Anais introduced themselves. Though the walk to the camp was bleak. Though Foxy, Spyro, and Gilda had been smiling at one another not so long ago, their cheerfulness died as soon as Gumball and Anais started to bawl again. Gilda would continuously shush them from time to time, her pleas for quietness moving from "Sh, it's okay," to "Will you brats just shut it?" rather quickly. This swift change was not unheard by Foxy or Spyro, who exchanged a swift, worried look halfway through their walk.

Foxy could see who Gilda was clearly; an angered person, someone trying to be kind but just not doing a good job at it. Her problem, it seemed to Foxy, was that she couldn't hold on to her ability to stay calm. Foxy observed that she had very clear anger issues. He could not deduce, however, how bad said issues were. He thought she had been getting some sort of therapy of some kind before she and the rest of them ended up in a world ruled by an army of the dead, but that the advice she had received in her past world was not being put to good use. She looked to be at her breaking point about halfway through the walk. It took another three minutes of sniveling and sobbing for Gilda to lose her control. She swooped down from the sky, getting into Gumball's face.

" _What the fuck do you think you're doing!"_ she screeched. _"Don't you know that these things are attracted to sound? It's like you wannna die out here before we make it! I got some advice for ya, kid; crying ain't gonna solve your problems! Suck it up and get a move on!"_

"Gilda!" Spyro shouted. "What the fuck? Why would you yell at a kid? His mother's dead and he saw his father get killed, all in less than twenty-four hours!"

"I'm sorry," Gilda angrily snapped. "Did you _want_ to get eaten? I can leave you here right now, can't I? There wouldn't be a thing to stop me from killing you right now?"

"Oh, just great," Spyro said, turning to Foxy. "Can you believe this shit? We're following someone who is willing to kill children! Just perfect!"

Gilda opened her mouth to say something, then closed it quickly. She looked down at Gumball. Foxy could tell by the way her pupils were shaking that she had realized what she had said. "Oh, goddess," she whispered. "I'm… I'm sorry, I… shit, I'm sorry."

"You think sorry's gonna cut it?" Spyro asked, glaring at the griffin above him.

"Spyro," Foxy warned. "That's enough."

"No," Gilda said. She landed in front of the dragon. Foxy could clearly see it now; sorry and apology in her eyes. "No, it's not okay for me to have said what I said. I had some… some, um, trouble back in my world. I wasn't what you'd call a… happy griffon. I was miserable until… until a friend helped me to make a friend. And I wasn't lonely anymore. But now…" The griffon trailed off, tears slowly working their way down her cheeks. She brushed them off with her talon. Foxy noticed that Spyro's eyes were sparkling with regret.

"Gilda, I'm so sor-"

"No," Gilda interrupted Spyro's would-be apology. "I am. I never should have let my anger get the better of me. I…" Gilda turned towards Gumball, who still had silent tears running down his face. "Kid, I'm sorry," she said. "I never should have said what I did. We're gonna go to the camp. You're gonna be safe there, okay?"

Gumball wiped his tears away with his sleeve, then nodded. A slight smile crept up Gilda's face. She turned towards Foxy who was still carrying Anais. "I'm… we should get to camp." Without another word, the griffin turned. She flapped her wings twice, then flew with the group in the direction of the camp.

As they walked along, Foxy observed the marsh slowly forming into a grassland. This grassland was vast, large tall strands of green growing on a large field. Foxy sniffed, smelling smells he had never scented before, had never been able to scent before. He looked out at the field, noticing that it was dotted with a few trees. On the other side of the field was a forest, split in half by a dirt path. "Those dead things don't normally intrude," Gilda explained. "They like to be in the forest, it seems."

Up ahead, Foxy could see large blue objects. The oncoming moon's light made the objects glow in the bright twilight. Foxy squinted, and realized that they were little blue homes. Gilda turned to Foxy's confused face, slight amusement creeping into hers. "They're called tents," she said. "We found about a dozen or so in the forest up ahead. We put them in this field. Seems safe enough from the dead things. Only three of them are occupied and set up, though."

"I thought you said you had four people in your group," Spyro inquired, suspicion crossing his gaze.

Spyro's suspicion was stomped by Gilda's answer; "The tents are big enough for up to three people to share. Two of our group members do."

As they approached the tents, Foxy saw a familiar figure exit one. Its fur was purplish-blue. Its muscular body rippled as it stood up. It raised a hand and waved to Gilda. The hand stopped waving as soon as the long-eared figure's eyes met Foxy's. Foxy's heart sped up in delight. He hadn't been the only animatronic from Freddy's to become a strange anthropomorphic biped. He had also, thank God, not been the only animatronic to be stuck here. "Foxy!" the bunny yelled.

"Bonnie!" Foxy yelled, waving. "That you!"

"Holy shit, man," Bonnie replied. He ran towards the group. In less than thirty seconds he was there, walking right beside Foxy. To Foxy, all of this felt like a dream, as though he were talking to a ghost. "Holy shit, dude, I never thought I'd see you again! And, holy shit, you're fixed! Your jaws not broken or anything! Some blessing, huh?"

"Yeah," Foxy admitted. Foxy and Bonnie had been friends before Foxy's injury. However, Foxy's seclusion in the Cove had caused their friendship to taper off. Foxy began to spend more time with Chica, while Bonnie took a liking to Freddy. There had been a point in their friendship where Bonnie had spontaneously asked Foxy if he liked anyone. Foxy, taken aback by this question, had responded, no, no one. Bonnie had replied with a short, oh, okay, then had looked down at his feet. Foxy knew what Bonnie had been thinking. They had never discussed Bonnie's implications, though Foxy had an idea that Bonnie becoming closer to Freddy in the few weeks before they were in a world of the dead was not merely for friendship.

Nonetheless, Bonnie was Foxy's oldest friend of them, and though he was not interested in what Bonnie implied, he still respected him and was willing to roll with the fact that his friend wouldn't be going after Chica any time soon. Or ever.

"So, who are all these fine folks?" Bonnie asked, his gaze drifting to Foxy's companions. Spyro and the kids introduced themselves. Then, Bonnie raised a hand. "Name's Bonnie," he said. Then, he turned his attention back to Foxy. "So, you guys are here to stay, I presume."

"Hell yeah," Foxy said, nodding. "Do you guys need us to help set up our tents or anything?"

"Well, since you all probably don't know how," Bonnie replied. "Gilda and I can set up three of 'em for you."

"We know how to," Gumball said. Dry tear tracks were still on his cheeks. "Anais, my sister and I. We can help you."

Bonnie looked at Gumball, concern crossing his face. "You sure you're up for that?" the rabbit asked.

Gumball nodded, determination spreading across his face. Bonnie turned back to Foxy. Before he could ask what it was that had caused Gumball to cry, Foxy whispered it. "Gilda told us you had a cat-lady in your group. It was his mom. Just don't mention it, okay? Kid's practically broken over that."

Shock crossed Bonnie's face. The rabbit nodded his head, then turned away from Foxy. "Shit's only just begun," Bonnie mused. "It hasn't even been twenty-four hours since we all woke up here yet."

Foxy let his eyes drift up to the sky. Barely any sunlight was left, causing a tint of blue to flow across the world. Foxy gulped, and suddenly realized with discomfort how dry the inside of his mouth felt. _Is this what being thirsty feels like?_ he thought to himself. He gulped, feeling some of his saliva drip down his throat. A very limited amount. Foxy turned back towards Bonnie, who was looking out at the forest. Foxy's eyes darted to where he was looking. He expected to see the shapes of Shambler's coming out of the forest, their gaping mouths oozing spit as they waddled over to the camp. Instead, there was nothing. "Hey, um, Bonnie," Foxy said. Bonnie began to turn towards him as he asked his question. "There any chance you have water at the camp? Or something?"

A grin broke out on Bonnie's face, though Foxy could see apprehension in his gaze. _There was something in there, wasn't there?_ Foxy thought. His eyes darted back to the forest as Bonnie responded, but he was unable to see anything in the shadows of the trees. "The thirst finally affecting you, huh?" Bonnie asked. "Yeah, that's what it is. Same as the kids at the restaurant who always wanted a Coke."

"Yeah," Foxy replied weakly, looking down. Bonnie having mentioned the restaurant had pulled off the restraints that had been around Foxy's thoughts. And now all he could see was Chica. He felt almost guilty, thinking about her. He'd thought about her more in the past twenty four hours than he would think about her in a week. It was as though someone had taken a knife and cut out a piece of his heart, hiding it away in the woods somewhere. That was the analogy that came to his mind, as well as the thought, _Holy shit, I have a heart now,_ followed by him placing his paw on his chest. He could hear its rhythmic beating like a drum. _Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump._

Bonnie glanced at Foxy, a smile lighting up his face. When Foxy glanced at him, his eyes were still filled with apprehension. "Yeah, heartbeats," Bonnie said, then chuckled lightly. "As long as that clock in your chest keeps on ticking, you're alive."

Foxy smiled. Bonnie turned his head back towards the small campsite. He then stopped abruptly. Foxy looked at where he was looking, shocked for only a moment. He had been so lost in thought and talking with Bonnie that he'd failed to notice that they had made it to camp. The blue tents were about as tall as Foxy was. They looked like giant crates made of thin fabric. Each one was shut by a zipper, something Foxy was able to recognize thanks to cold winters drawing kids with jackets into the restaurant. Bonnie waved his hand out, like a proud car salesman showing off the finest vehicles in stock. "Welcome," Bonnie said. "To home."

Foxy looked around, his eyes finally settling on two figures that had gotten up from the ground. They had been sitting in the grass across from each other around a small circle of rocks filled with sticks and twigs. Both of them turned, their eyes locking on the newcomers. One of the figures was a thin, black-haired human boy. He had brown eyes and a hat with a strange, circular symbol on it. He wore black gloves, a blue and white sweatshirt with a yellow zipper, brown jeans, and puffy red and black shoes. The other figure was a brown-haired human girl. She had a red bandanna tied around her head, the strange symbol from the boy's hat also present on this. She wore a red, zipped-up suit, white and blue gloves, a yellow belt, short black pants, black socks, and red and black shoes. They both looked mistrustfully at the strangers. Foxy looked down as the boy's hand curled into a fist. Bonnie put a hand out. "Woah there, Ash," he said. "These aren't prisoners. They're joining us. See this guy? This is Foxy. The guy I was telling you about?"

The boy named Ash relaxed. He walked over to Foxy, then stuck his hand out in a friendly gesture. "Sorry about that," he said. "Name's Ash." Foxy shook his hand, looking into the kid's eyes as he did. The kid was probably at least two feet shorter than him, and, just like Bonnie, there was distrust and apprehension in his eyes. _Something's going on,_ Foxy thought. _Something they don't want us to know. Something that puts us in danger. Something._

"And, uh, this is May," Ash said, taking his eyes off Foxy, his head turning towards the red bandanna girl. May smiled and waved, though her eyes remained dull. Foxy let go of the boy's hand, then looked up. Gilda was flying down. She landed gracefully on her eagle talons, digging them into the grass-filled earth. She smiled up at Foxy and he saw that she too looked nervous. He backed up a bit.

Bonnie looked at Foxy quizzically, then turned towards Spyro. "You, um, Spyro, is it?" he asked. Spyro nodded. "Could you and Foxy help us set up three tents for you? I assume the kids'll want to sleep in the same tent. For safety."

Spyro nodded. "Sure, we can-"

"What the hell are you hiding from us?"

All eyes were trained on Foxy. He looked around and the people that had taken in his group of ragged survivors. Not even twenty four hours had passed in this world, and already people were keeping secrets. "You're all not exactly the best at hiding your nerves," Foxy explained. "So, I'd like to know. What is it you're all so afraid of?"

There was silence for a bit. Foxy looked over at Gilda, glaring. "I'm their leader," he went on. "It's my job to protect them. If there's anything that could hurt them, we should know about it."

Gilda looked down, shifting her talons against the ground. After a moment, before Foxy could say anything else, she looked up. "Here's what's gonna happen," she explained. "At dawn, I'll wake you up, and you and I will talk in my tent. Then, I'll talk to Spyro. Then the kids. You'll all be informed on what's happening. But for now, we'll set up tents and we'll go to sleep."

Foxy looked at Gilda for a moment, considering. She was going to tell them that was obvious enough. And if Bonnie trusted her, what reason did he have not to? She was offering warmth and comfort for a night before they were to be told about the danger. What was the harm in that? Foxy sighed. "Fine," he said. "But we should set up some night guards so we don't get ambushed by Shamblers in the middle of the night."

Gilda nodded. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I'll take the first shift. When the moon's in the center of the sky, I'll wake one of you up. Then, whoever's taking the second shift'll wait till the moon is three-fourths across the sky, wake somebody else up. Got it?"

"I'd like to volunteer to guard," Spyro chirped up.

Gilda looked at him, then nodded. "Good," she replied. "Me first, Bonnie second, Spyro third. We clear?"

Everyone nodded. Everyone but Foxy. He was still looking at Gilda, the feelings of suspicion unable to leave him. Something was going on. Something bad. And he had to get to the bottom of it.

 **3**

"Spyro."

A soft whisper in the night woke Spyro up. His eyes fluttered open, and he yawned sleepily. His dreams had been plagued with images of his best friend, a dragonfly named Sparx, as well as Cynder lying next to him. He was so exhausted when Bonnie woke him up that he was unable to stop the word "Cynder," from tumbling out of his mouth.

Then his eyes opened, and they met Bonnie's quizzical face. The urge to ask a question subsided, and Spyro was relieved. He didn't want to feel like shit, talking about someone who could easily be dead. Someone he hadn't seen in what felt like years. Someone he just wanted to hold against him, to be with, to laugh with, to-

"Yeah, I'm… I'm up," Spyro muttered as he lifted himself from the tent floor. Gilda's group had found about two dozen blankets along with the tents. Spyro had three of them, as did everyone. He took the one on top of him off, stretched, and then made his way to the tent's opening. Bonnie backed up to give Spyro enough room to get out. The dragon stretched his wings up, flapped them once, and then lowered them. Bonnie handed an object to the dragon. It was the gun that Foxy had found in the pack the day before. Foxy had given it to Gilda as the weapon the guard could use. Gilda had accepted it, though was a bit wary due to the fact that only two bullets remained in the pistol. But, nonetheless, she was thankful.

That night, the air was much cooler than it had been before. Earlier in the evening, when the light had not faded as much as it had then, Spyro, Foxy, Gilda, and Bonnie had set up three more tents. The six total tents created a circle around the tiny campfire in the center of their camp. Foxy had gone to sleep earlier than everyone else, and was still dreaming as Spyro wandered through the camp. He made his way to the edge of the camp, then flew up into the air swiftly and quietly.

He had decided before he'd gone to sleep that he would use his wings to his advantage. Though flapping them took a bit of effort, he had flown with Cynder for hours plenty of time before for them to feel fine if he stayed in the air until the sun rose. He turned every few minutes, looking on all sides of the camp to make sure there were no Shamblers coming out of the woods to have a nighttime snack on a helpless group member.

After an hour of doing nothing but flying in circles, Spyro's mind wandered back to Cynder. He missed her more than anything about his old world. Sure, there was flying around at night, but he was doing that here, and what fun was that without Cynder? Sure, there was making sure that Sparx didn't get into trouble, but he didn't have to if he wasn't here, and what fun was that without Cynder there to scold him and their mildly annoyed banter to keep each other entertained? What fun was it, really, without anyone? Spyro had no idea. He looked down at the camp, imagining everyone in their tents sleeping soundly. Gilda in her tent, Bonnie in his, Foxy in his, Ash and May in theirs, the siblings in another. These people, for this time, were under Spyro's protection. He felt happy that he could do such a service for the good of the group.

Another hour went by. The world slowly gained a tint of blue as the sun began to push the moon away. Spyro looked at the moon for a moment, admiring its dim light. He could remember his childhood, Sparx and him playing tag underneath the moonlight until the great sphere in the sky was at the center. Night would be half over, and neither of them would feel tired. But, still, when their parents put them to bed, they fell asleep instantly. Every night for years and years, as both of them grew up together, they would play tag under the stars.

Then, he felt something stir in his mind. He realized with a jolt that there were memories after that white light. Memories of the world being at peace, of flying around with Cynder, of nights where the two of them were alone. Of feeling free after the defeat of the dark dragon he had spent most of his life up to that point trying to destroy.

And, in adulthood, he would sit under a tree, watching the stars with Cynder by his side. He would wrap his wings around her purple and pink body, while she wrapped hers around him. They would sit there and look at the stars for hours, heads together, talking about the world, about themselves, about each other. She would wrap her spiked tail around his. He would stare into her emerald green eyes, and he would say, "You'll never know, Cynder, how much I love you." They would embrace, and, if all went well, they would fall asleep under the stars.

 _I just want you close to me again,_ Spyro thought. He sighed, turning his attention back to guarding. His eyes locked on it for only a moment, but he knew exactly what they were before they disappeared. Panic destroyed his thoughts of the past. He swooped down, landing quickly near the campfire. He looked around, panicking. Which tent was Gilda's again? He turned around, grabbed hold of the tent's zipper, and opened it. Ash and May were there, their heads next to each other's, both of them on their backs. Spyro quickly zipped the tent back up as quietly as he could.

He checked the tent to the right of theirs, the carefully opened it up. Gilda was in there, sleeping. Her eyelids were locked shut, a stern look on her face as though her dream was very businesslike. He walked into the tent, hesitating a moment before putting his claws on her. He shook her gently. "Gilda," he whispered, feeling awkward to be waking someone who seemed to be his age up like this.

"Mmmmm," Gilda murmured before her eyes snapped open. A claw shot out and grabbed Spyro by the neck, he winced as she pulled him towards her, her eyes on fire. "What?" she demanded in an angered whisper.

"I… Eyes," Spyro said. "There were eyes but they… I think someone's watching us."

Gilda sighed, then let go of Spyro's neck. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah."

"You… you know about this?" Spyro questioned.

Gilda looked at him, annoyance in her eyes. "Yeah, we all do," she replied. "We keep seeing people near the camp, normally only shadows sticking out from the forest beyond the grassland, or in the swamp. We keep seeing a figure with yellow eyes, bulky and it… we just don't know who or what it is."

"And you decided not to tell us about it before we all went to sleep because… why, exactly?"

Gilda turned on him, glaring, barring her teeth at him. Spyro's first thought was, _Griffin's have teeth?_ His second was, _Shit._

"Because we don't know what type of people you are!" she snapped. "We don't know if one of you will go out and try to kill whoever was out there, or if you'll give up guarding this place or whatever. Sure, I know it's only been, what, a day since we got here? But even then, we all have to be careful!"

Spyro stayed silent for a minute, waiting to see if Gilda would continue. Her face slowly began to go back to normal, her glare fading, her teeth separating. A look of calmness spread across her face. "Stay at your post," she murmured. "We still have an hour of moonlight left." She settled herself back down on her blankets, turning her head away from Spyro. Spyro nodded, then left, zipping the tent up on his way out.

He flew back up into the air, looking out at the places beyond this small campsite. The forest to one side, the swamp to the other, grasslands beyond. What was there in this world? How much room was there for people? The forest seemed thick enough for a campsite to be there for a while without the group noticing. And wouldn't everyone want to unite against a common enemy as it stood? Spyro didn't know, but he did know that they we're not the only ones in this world. Far from it. There could be hundreds, thousands of people on this strange planet that the group didn't know about. There were only eight people in the group. Eight. There could easily be eight thousand more that they had yet to meet.

And maybe one of them would be Cynder.

 **4**

Day two.

"We have to investigate."

"You don't make the decisions around here, okay? I do! And I say no. It puts the group at risk, Foxy, and I ain't gonna do that."

"Well, if that group that's out there want's to attack today, tonight, whenever they feel like, they can. Who's stopping them? Apparently, we aren't."

" _Enough!"_ Gilda roared, her wings unfolding, rising above her head. She wore an angry mask on her face that deterred Foxy for only a moment. Then, he spoke softly.

"No, not enough. We have to keep this group safe. At all cost, they are what matters. We have four children here, two of which, Gumball and Anais, I'm sure can't take care of themselves. Look, what if Bonnie and I went into the forest and took a look at whoever it is that's out there?"

Gilda's anger slowly began to ebb away. Foxy could see she was deliberating how good of an idea it was. He hoped she'd say yes. She'd told him about what was happening with whoever was watching the camp, and what Spyro had seen the night before. He wanted to go out to the forest and question whoever it was that was most likely out there. He knew that if Gilda didn't give him permission to take Bonnie and go out there, he would do it himself.

"How do you know they're in the forest?" Gilda asked.

"You said it yourself, you've seen this figure mostly in the forest," Foxy replied. "So, if they were camping out, my best bet would be that that's where they are. And if we find no one, then we'll just keep a better lookout from here on out. Either they'll confront us or they won't."

"And what makes you sure they'll confront us?"

"We have supplies. Warm tents, blankets, two pistols, food, water, a campfire. Everything you need to live in a situation like this. Who wouldn't want to take it? And if it's a big enough group, they'll do it by any means necessary. They would kill any of us. We can't let that happen."

Gilda scratched her chin thoughtfully. She looked down, her golden eyes seemingly far away for a moment. She looked back up, her eyes gleaming with an emotion Foxy could not decipher.

"Fine," she said. "You and Bonnie can go out there this afternoon. But be quick. If I have to send Spyro out and leave the kids vulnerable with just me to guard them and you haven't been captured or killed, I'm gonna be pissed."

Foxy smiled. "We won't be two hours. It'll be like we were never gone."

A smile crossed Gilda's beak. "Yeah, okay. But don't draw any of those… what do you call them, Shamblers? Don't draw them over here."

"We'll be careful. Kill any we see coming towards us."

Gilda nodded. Her eyes darted back down to the tent floor. Foxy looked at her, expecting her to say something. The silence hung in the air like a pendulum. Foxy's gaze shifted to the tent exit, then back to Gilda. He was about to leave when Gilda's head snapped back up. Her golden eyes pierced his duller yellow ones, and he felt a cool shiver travel up his spine. "You need to understand something," Gilda explained. "I run the show around here. Nobody but me. You've persuaded me into doing this favor for you, just this one time. You best remember it."

Foxy tried to hide his shock at her piercing words, though her glare told him that she meant it. "What the hell are you talking about?" Foxy demanded.

"Look, I get that you were the leader of your group, and I know it's a hard thing to do, but from here on out, I make the decisions. This one time, Foxy, I'm gonna put my trust in you. But you aren't their leader anymore. I am. I am your leader."

"I don't want trouble, Gilda. I was their leader for, what, half a day? I'm only being so persistent because I feel that whoever's watching us could be dangerous. Can't you just understand that? That I'm not a control freak coming in to take your place?"

Silence hung in the air again. Two pairs of eyes colored gold, one duller than the other, stared into each other. The staring contest lasted a moment, before Foxy dropped his eyes. "We've all lost people, and you have a right to be angry. But you don't have to go taking it out on me."

Shock coursed through Gilda's face. "What?" she asked, stunned. "What the hell do you-?"

"Don't think I don't see it," Foxy said, looking back into her face. "You've been upset almost all the time, every time I've laid eyes on you. You've said it already, that you've lost someone close to you. That they made you feel less angry. You need to know something; if you need someone to talk to, I'm here. I know, someone you met less than a full day ago is saying you can talk to him, but if we're gonna build some damn trust then we might as well start there. But don't go spewing bullshit, like how me disagreeing with you somehow implies I want to take over. I don't. I can't lead these people. But you? I think you can. You've already gathered all of us. But people are going to think differently, and you have to take that into consideration. We all have to take each other into consideration. That's the only way we can tru-"

"Get out."

Gilda's voice, in barely a whisper, was clear in Foxy's ears. He knew it was best not to argue with her; he'd already pissed her off enough. He nodded his head, then left the tent. He popped his head back in swiftly. "Do you want the door zipped up?"

Gilda's eyes snapped back up at him. The chill went through his spine again. She stood on all fours, striding over to the entrance of the tent. She took the zipper in one talon and shut the tent. Foxy stared at the tent for a moment. He sighed, then turned his back on the tent. He could hear faint sobbing coming from inside of it. He turned his head back towards it one last time, then walked away.

 **5**

"Hey, Spyro!"

Spyro jumped, his wings completely out, his face in a grimace. He turned around, wondering who had interrupted his glorious dream. He had gone to sleep for a few hours that morning, exhausted from being woken up so early for his guard duty. His dreams had been wonderful. He had dreamt he was under a tree with Cynder, their bodies wrapped around one another, looking up at the moon and the stars glistening in the sky. He remembered dragging his tail along her back, her nuzzling her head closer under his neck. He had entwined his tail with hers, moved his body closer to hers, feeding off her warmth…

And then it had ended when the black-haired boy in the cap screeched loudly into his tent. Spyro turned, seeing the boy grinning sheepishly into the tent. Spyro rolled his eyes while Ash scratched the back of his head with his hand. "S-sorry," he apologized. "I thought you we're in a deep sleep, so I kinda yelled too loud. Again, sorry about that."

Spyro sighed. "No, no, it's okay," he lied, lifting himself completely off of his makeshift bed. _I'll probably have another dream like that again tonight,_ he thought, though the prospect of another dream about Cynder only wanted to make him lay back down and think about her. Think about touching her. Of making love to her. He pushed the thoughts from his mind; they could wait until night fell. "What did you have to tell me?" he asked Ash.

"Um, May and I boiled a can of soup we found," Ash explained. "We know you haven't had anything to eat since yesterday afternoon, and we know you've been up a lot of that time, so we have a small bowl waiting for you next to the fire."

Spyro felt his stomach rumble at the mention of food. It must have been audible to Ash, since the boy stifled a giggle. Spyro looked at him, a smile crossing over his face. "I'd love some," Spyro replied.

Ash backed out from the tent's entrance, giving Spyro enough room to get out. Afternoon light blinded him for only a moment before his eyes got used to the sun's rays. He turned towards the campfire. May sat cross-legged next to it, holding a metal spoon in one hand, a ceramic bowl full of yellow fluid with carrots and chicken strewn about in it. Gilda sat next to her on the left, stirring the bowl's contents with her spoon, sadness glossing her eyes over. Gumball and Anais sat to May's right, both of them gobbling the soup down greedily, light-hearted smiles on their faces. Gumball's, however, seemed strained and out of place. Spyro looked around for a sign of Bonnie and Foxy, though could see them nowhere.

In answer to his quizzical look, Ash said, "Bonnie and Foxy are taking a look at whoever has been spying on our camp. Hope they get 'em."

"Hope that miserable prick doesn't come back," Gilda replied.

Everyone stopped eating their soup. Spyro stopped in his tracks. Everyone's eyes trained on Gilda. She didn't look up, only continued to stir her soup, her eyes filled with grief. Spyro felt a twinge at his heart, seeing her look so broken like this. He walked over to her, past his soup that sat waiting for him in the grass. When he plopped down, Gilda didn't look up. She seemed mesmerized by her stirring of the soup. For a moment, Spyro said nothing. Everyone continued to stare at the two of them. Spyro cleared his throat, attempting to get Gilda's attention. She continued to stare down at the bowl of soup. Spyro then did something he would regret only a few seconds later. He stretched out his wing, laying it gently on Gilda's back.

She took her attention off the soup immediately. She jumped on top of Spyro. He yelped in surprise as she put all her weight on him. Rage glistened in her eyes, along with tears that were beginning to slowly slip down her face. Spyro wasn't afraid of this ravaging creature; he felt sorry for her.

" _Don't touch me!_ " she roared. A talon raised up, sunlight bouncing off of it quickly. Spyro braced for her claw to come down, to slash him across the face. But it never did. She rolled off of him. Then the tough as nails griffin, the one who had single-handedly taken out an army of Shamblers and had saved four lives in the process began to cry.

"I just wanna see her," she whined. "She can't be dead, she can't be, I just wanna see her!"

Gilda shifted herself, getting into a fetal position. Spyro felt his heart crack. He knew he wasn't the only one who missed a loved one with all his heart and soul, but he hadn't realized how badly someone else could miss someone they loved. He felt his pain of missing Cynder dissipate for the moment. For now, all that mattered was this hopeless, broken griffin that was lying beside him, crying in front of him and four children. Their leader, breaking down into a fit of sobs because one of the people that they loved was gone.

Spyro's impulse kicked in. He stood over her for a moment. Gilda looked up at him, sniffling. "Go away," she murmured before burying her head back into her wing. "Go away, just go."

Spyro lowered himself to the ground next to her. He got on his side, facing her. She looked up, moving her wing away from her face. Spyro took her claws into his, and he smiled at her. "It's gonna be okay," he said. "We're all here for you. All of us."

A smile broke through Gilda's tears. "If you're thinking that this is gonna get you laid, you should probably know off the bat I'm not into guys."

There was a chorus of laughter from everyone, including Gilda and Spyro, as Spyro got up, standing Gilda up with him. He looked into her eyes, her golden eyes, and somehow, they made him miss Cynder even more. "If you need anyone to talk to," Spyro said. "I'm here."

"Thanks," Gilda said, wiping away the last of her tears with her wing. "But Foxy kinda already offered me up on that."

"Open up to whoever you want, then," Spyro said. "It'll make you feel better. Trust me. When I first met Foxy, we sat in a tree and I talked a little about a close friend of mine. I think I miss her a bit less because of that, even if it's not much. He's a good listener."

Gilda nodded. "Yeah, I'll… I'll do that."

She sat next to Spyro as they both ate their soup. The soup was cold and smelled like piss, but Spyro didn't mind. He just wanted to get some food in him. Gilda talked to him the whole time about who she missed, about why she was so upset, about her and the world. And Spyro listened.

 **6**

"Shit, behind you!"

Foxy turned, whipping his hook at the figure that was lumbering towards him. The sharp, metal object attached to his hand sunk into the Shambler's head, a sickening slurp following it. He pulled the hook out, letting the blue body drop to the ground in a heap. Foxy turned back towards Bonnie. The rabbit was wielding a small knife that the duo had found at the edge of the forest. While Foxy was dealing with his Shambler, Bonnie had been dealing with his. The second figure was also on the ground, as limp as a puppet without any strings attached.

"Thanks," Foxy said gratefully, his eyes meeting Bonnie's.

"No problem," Bonnie replied, putting his arm back down to his side, the knife's point facing the ground. The two of them had left the camp just as the sun had risen to its highest point in the sky, both of them prepared to face the forest. They had gone only thirty feet in when four Shamblers had come out of the woods on all sides of them. They'd managed to fight them off without much circumstance. A disaster was averted only through sheer luck; Foxy's hook had been caught in the first Shambler, and he's struggled to get it out. Had Bonnie not warned him of the Shambler sneaking up behind him, Foxy may have been dead.

"I really hope we find another weapon," Foxy confessed. "If my hook gets caught in one of these thing's skulls, I'm as good as dead."

"Maybe whoever's out here'll be kind enough to give us a weapon to use," Bonnie replied, smiling. "Ya know, not try to actually use it on us."

"You think whoever's out here is gonna be hostile towards us?" Foxy asked.

Bonnie shrugged. He turned back towards the forest. The cluster of trees that became thicker as the forest went on was dark, night-like. "Maybe," he said. "Or they think we'll be the hostile ones."

"Why the hell wouldn't they trust us?" Foxy asked. "We're all facing a common problem here. None of us have any idea where we are, and we're all trapped with a bunch of people from other worlds we don't even know."

"Might be that they know what happens to some people in situations like this," Bonnie mused, his eyes locked on the dark forest beyond. "Maybe it's that they know that some people'll just go crazy and snap with their life in danger. The crazy, the greedy, the takers, they'll be the ones to avoid and the ones that will avoid."

Foxy shook his head. "Hostile or not, we gotta find whoever this is. If they're a threat to the camp though… you know what we have to do, don't you?"

Bonnie turned away from the forest, his eyes locking on Foxy. Foxy was shocked to see how much determination was in his friends' eyes. He looked as though he would do anything to protect the camp. "I know," he replied softly. "I don't know if I can do it, and I don't know if you think you can do it, but I do know that, no matter what, we gotta do it."

Foxy nodded. Bonnie turned back towards the darkness of the forest. Foxy walked towards him and they both began to trudge along the dirt path. They walked in unison and in silence, the only sounds breaking their soundless walk their footsteps pattering on the dirt and the occasional bird tweeting into the air. The walk gave Foxy enough time to think about what it was they were doing. Thinking about it caused the weight of everything happening to crash down on him like a pile of bricks. His heart began to pump blood quickly through his newly acquired veins. He had hoped that whoever it was wasn't going to be posing a threat to the camp. It was unlikely that they would be, so he had hoped for the best. He'd been trying to convince himself in the hours between talking to Gilda and going into the woods with Bonnie that, if it was necessary, he would have to kill whoever it was that was watching them. That was, if they actually posed a threat. But now, he couldn't see himself raising up his hook to kill someone. Killing the living was a lot worse than killing the dead, even if the living were trying to kill you. It just didn't feel right to him. He knew, however, that holding a prisoner in a campsite wouldn't be the best idea. They would have nothing to hold them in and it would be easy for them to escape. But still, did killing them really have to be the final option? Was there no way to make peace, or to at least try and-

"Shit shit shit, look at that!" Bonnie shouted, pointing to the left. Foxy turned his attention to where Bonnie was indicating. Up on a small hill was a raggedy, green tent. Its open door flapped in the wind. Holes dotted the pitiful little living space, as though insects had decided it a good fabric to begin to chew through. Foxy noticed movement behind a tree. He looked up, seeing a large shadow run swiftly in the opposite direction. The yellow eyes, glaring at him, took his completely off guard.

" _Hey!"_ Foxy shouted, running off the path and making his way up the steep dirt hill. " _Hey! Get back here, we just want to talk!_ "

 _BLAM!_

Two fair-sized bullets whizzed by, missing Foxy's head by only an inch. Had he not ducked, the bullets would have cemented themselves into his cranium, and that would be the end of his hunt for whoever was watching the camp. Instead, the bullets smashed against a tree behind him with incredible force. Bark sprayed from the injured tree, causing Foxy to instinctively lay himself down on the ground. He put his hand and hook above his head, wrapping his paw around the hook.

Foxy turned towards the dirt path. Bonnie was also on the ground, looking up at Foxy fearfully. Another blast echoed through the air as another explosion of wood sounded off from behind Foxy. There was a heavily audible creek, causing Foxy to crane his neck around to see where that sound was coming from. The tree that had been shot twice was slowly falling forward. Fear quickened Foxy's heart as he felt frozen in place. The tree was inching closer to him as its top branches began to lower, coming down to touch his face.

" _Foxy!"_

The yell from Bonnie unfroze Foxy, as though Bonnie had pressed "Play" on a DVD remote. Foxy rolled down the hill, dirt and grass entering his eyes and mouth. He heard a muffled crash behind him as the tree slapped against the forest floor. He coughed and sputtered dirt once he reached the bottom of the hill. He rubbed a bit of grime out of his eyes, then turned his attention towards Bonnie. "Definitely not friendly," Foxy managed through a mouthful of dirt.

Bonnie held a hand over his mouth, his eyes gleaming with laughter. Foxy stood up. He held his hand out to Bonnie, who took it and heaved himself up. They both looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing. Their laughter echoed through the treetops, the final event to break apart the fresh silence of the forest that day. After their laughter had dried up, Foxy turned his attention to the fallen tree. The wood of the tree was heavily rotted, as though someone who wanted to take it down in a few ax swings would be able to. Bonnie put his hands on his hips, then looked at Foxy. "Well," he said. "Since that guy's obviously not coming back, what do you say we go up and see what he's got in the tent?"

Foxy looked over at Bonnie, who smiled at him. "What?" Bonnie asked. "He did try to shoot at us, and we need all the supplies we can get.

Foxy looked back up at the tree. Luckily, the large wooden object hadn't crushed the tent, which was still flapping in the light wind. He then turned back to Bonnie. "Sounds good to me."

The two scaled the dirt hill up to the flapping green tent.

 **7**

Foxy and Bonnie returned that evening with a plethora of items. They'd rolled up the green tent and put it into a backpack they'd found in the tent. The tent had held a sleeping bag along with two white blankets. There was also a gray and blue backpack that had been sitting on the side of the tent. It held four water bottles (they discarded two, one that was opened and one that was half-drunk), a simplistic first aid kit with a few kinds of bandages and ointments, two unopened jars of peanut butter, three boxes of crackers, and two unopened ammunition boxes for the double-barrel sawed-off shotgun the duo had found in the tent. There was also a silver pistol that contained 12 bullets in the cartridge. When the two of them came back to camp, they could observe the brilliant sparkle in the children's eyes in the fading light; they saw these two as heroes.

Foxy and Bonnie walked into Gilda's tent with all the supplies. Bonnie wore the pack and held the shotgun in his hand while Foxy held the rolled-up sleeping bag in one hand, the pistol in the other. Gilda had been sitting, staring into space. She perked up at the sight of them. "Well, well, well," she said, grinning. "Seems you two got lucky."

"Yeah, no shit," Foxy replied. "The guy who had all this stuff made a quick getaway. Shot at me with a shotgun. He retreated and he's hostile as is, so we thought, hey, why not take this stuff? We need more as it is."

Gilda's face became stern at Foxy's explanation. "You're sure he won't come back looking for this stuff.

"In all honesty, Gilda," Bonnie piped up. "We don't know anything other than the fact that we have this stuff and that whoever it was, they were on their own. We found two blankets in their sleeping bag, and we've only ever seen one yellow-eyed figure near camp. It's safe to assume they're on their own."

Gilda considered this for a moment, then looked sternly at Bonnie. "We'll have three shifts again tonight, just in case," she decided. "Bonnie, I'd like you to take first watch. I'll take second. Foxy, do you mind taking third?"

"I'm alright with that," Foxy replied, nodding.

"Good," Gilda turned back towards Bonnie. "Bonnie, get that green tent set up near the campfire. We'll use that as a storage place for everything we have. Keep the shotgun for yourself; you've earned it."

"Aye," Bonnie replied, saluting. He left out of the tent flap, which he kept open behind him. Gilda watched him go, a strange light in her eyes. Then, the eyes darted back towards Foxy.

"Zip up the tent," she demanded.

"What?" Foxy asked, confused.

"Zip up the tent," Gilda repeated. "I need to talk to you."

 **Authors Note: So as you can probably tell by now, each chapter is going to be exactly 9,000 words long. I'm doing this to give the story a bit more of a comic-bookish feel to it, in that every chapter you get the same amount of content as the last one. I'll be focusing a lot more on the new characters from this chapter in the next few, so stay tuned for that.**

 **I should also probably let you know early that, since this is a zombie story, characters can die at any time. Even your favorite. This will hopefully soften the blow for what's to come. I've probably already said too much.**

 **Yup. Already said too much.**

 **I'll see you next chapter then…**


	3. Chapter 3: Before

**Chapter 3: Before**

 **1**

"What is it?"

Foxy asked Gilda this question moments after he had closed the tent flap and had sat down in front of her. She looked extremely nervous, as though anything she said would be used against her in some form or another. Foxy could see the small amount of perspiration forming on her forehead. _What are you going to tell me?_ Foxy asked himself. Then, Gilda let out a heavy sigh, and began.

"Something happened while you guys were gone," she said, her eyes filled with embarrassment. "Something I really don't wanna talk about since it makes me seem like a total dweeb. Spyro can tell ya that much. But, in light of those events, I feel like I have to… talk… with you about… the past…"

She trailed off, her eyes softening, sadness emitting from them prominently. Foxy leaned forward. "What is it?" he asked in a soft voice.

Gilda looked up, and Foxy could see that she was holding back the urge to cry. He wanted to embrace her, but he knew that, by doing that, she may not want to talk at all. Instead he just looked down, glancing back up once, patiently waiting for her to continue to speak.

"I…" Gilda's eyes fell to the floor of the tent. "I had a friend back in… before this. She was… her name was… Greta. We met after this other friend of mine came to my home city, and, after some stuff happened with us, I became friends with Greta. And then… then…"

Gilda turned away from Foxy. Before her eyes were fully out of view, Foxy could see a shine of anger and distrust in them. He sat still, his heartbeat quickening, as he waited for Gilda to either continue to talk or kick him out again. After a moment without sound, Foxy tried his luck and spoke. "Gilda," he said. "Gilda, it's okay if you don't wanna say any more. I understand. I lost someone close to me too. I… her name was Chica. We were close. She seemed to be the only one willing to be there for me after an… an accident. I just wish that, before all of this, we could have gotten… closer."

Gilda turned around, and Foxy could see that she was struggling to hold back tears. He felt tears of his own begin to struggle from his eyes, but he willed them back. Gilda, however, was not as willful. Liquid poured down her face as she continued to talk. "It was this one time," she sobbed. "She, we, I…" she sniffed, wiping away her tears with one of her talons. She took a few breaths in, composing herself. All the while, Foxy continued to look at her, hoping that she wasn't able to see how on-edge he was in terms of holding his tears back. He was about to speak again when she perked up.

"She came over my house," Gilda explained. "She wanted to know what the recipe for these scones I made were. I used to make some before, it was my specialty, until I learned from someone that they wouldn't taste too good without baking powder. Anyways, I decided to give Greta the secret recipe. I trusted her enough that I thought, hey, whatever. So she came over and we… we started to bake some scones. I showed her how to do it and all that stuff, get the ingredients, whatever. And then she… she got really close. Like… really _really_ close. She wrapped a wing around me and kinda… I dunno, nuzzled up to me, I guess? She was… soft. And she asked me… she asked me how long the scones would take and I… and then she… she kissed me."

Gilda turned away again, a fresh new wave of tears flowing down her face. At that point, though he had no idea whether this was a good idea or not, Foxy stood. He walked over to her, knelt while wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close. She sobbed into his red fur, moistening it. "It's okay," Foxy whispered, his voice cracking as he did so. "It's okay."

"No," Gilda sobbed. "Nothing's gonna be okay. Not for any of us."

They sat there for fifteen minutes, the seconds ticking by on the invisible clock that runs the world. In those fifteen minutes, Gilda never looked up to see tears running down Foxy's face. He was thinking about Chica. About the possibility that he would never see her again.

 **2**

Day three.

"Hey, Foxy!" Bonnie shouted. He was just getting out of his tent, the last one to wake up. "Foxy, you see anything last night?"

Foxy, who had taken the final night shift, who had barely slept the night before after his emotional talk with Gilda, and who had not gone back to sleep after his shift, shook his head wordlessly. His head was pounding from exhaust. How many hours of sleep had he gotten the night before? Three? Four at best. And even then, his dreams were plagued with images of Chica. But it wasn't Chica, not truly. Her eyes were bright with hunger, and she had been stumbling towards him, growling and moaning. Razor teeth protruded from her open mouth. She was grinning at Foxy, and Foxy knew why. She had found fresh meat; she was ready to feed.

He had woken up in a sweat when Gilda had woken him up. He had nearly screamed, and would have had Gilda not put one of her talons over his mouth. She looked at him with pity and sadness. One word had come out of her mouth; "Chica?"

He had nodded, then left the tent wordlessly. His mind meandered from the task of guarding, and he would have fallen asleep again had he not heard Gumball sneeze. He had jumped, almost screaming again before covering his mouth. He glanced around, listening to hear if anyone had been woken up. He heard someone in Ash and May's tent shift in their covers, then lay still. A breath of relief escaped Foxy, and he began to watch and listen for intruders. The night carried on, Foxy still awake by mid-morning, when Bonnie exited his tent.

A look of concern crossed Bonnie's face. "Hey, man, are you okay?" he asked. Foxy looked at him, his head turning slowly. He felt as though he were in a dream. For one split second, he could see Chica's face again, rotted and mangled as it had been in his fractured sleep. Then it was gone, replaced only by his best friend's concerned gaze.

"Nah," Foxy replied. "I'm fine."

"You sure?" Bonnie asked, stepping closer. "Your eyes looked bloodshot to hell. You sure you don't wanna go get some sleep? We have a bunch of supplies, those Shambler's haven't been bothering us a lot, and if they did we would probably be able to handle it. Go get some rest, man. You seriously look like shit."

"I… I'm fine!" Foxy shouted. Everyone else had been talking around the campfire. They all turned their attention to Foxy when he shouted his assurance. He looked at them, feeling as though his eyes were too wide. He looked back at Bonnie, who had put a hand on Foxy's shoulder.

"Go get some sleep," Bonnie suggested. "We can take care of the camp. You don't have anything you have to worry about."

Foxy looked back at the camp fire, his eyes meeting Gilda's. She nodded. He turned back towards Bonnie, then nodded to him. Wordlessly, Bonnie guided Foxy over to his tent, a hand still resting on his shoulder. A mumble of inaudible words came from Foxy when he stumbled over a small root. Bonnie mumbled something in return, though Foxy could not hear him. He stumbled into his tent, Bonnie letting go of his shoulder as he fell on top of his blankets. There was a short thump as he hit them, and within a moment, Foxy was consumed by sleep.

 **3**

He was looking into a pool of water. The water was vibrating swiftly while curling and flowing smoothly about. Foxy's reflection in the water was broken up, fragments of his face scattered throughout the surface. He could see his golden eyes gleaming as though the sun were hitting them from the water. He felt as though he were both looking at his reflection, and looking at his actual self. Whether this was an out of body experience or not, Foxy had no idea. However, he suspected that this was what it felt like.

 _You're dreaming,_ his mind suddenly told him. Though the concept of dreams was still new to Foxy, he was able to grasp it easily. It was most likely natural instinct, considering that they were now a natural part of his sleep. But there was no time to think about the implications nor the specifics of dreams and their occurrence. Some subconscious thought told Foxy that there was no time to waste on such minor details. That something was happening. Something bad. Something that had something to do with the Shamblers… but something else as well. Something much more powerful.

And, just as he thought of some other power, there it was, standing above his own broken reflection. From the water, the gray figure clad in a large black robe looked twisted and distorted. It looked as though the figure's top half had suddenly lost all of its bone and muscle, flopping flimsily to the right. Foxy had no intention of turning around and felt, somewhere in the back of his mind, that if he even tried to turn around he wouldn't be able to. He did, however, attempt to lift his legs. That only resulted in him realizing that he couldn't even feel them.

The black-robed figure seemed to mumble something behind Foxy. Or was it the water merely lapping against a shore that Foxy couldn't see? Was it that? No. Couldn't be. The black figure had something important to inform Foxy of, something that needed his attention. Whatever it was standing solemnly behind him, whatever it was that had just mumbled something to him behind his back, it needed his attention. But how was he supposed to turn to the figure if he couldn't move. He then tried to talk, and found he could. "Who are you?" he asked the grotesque figure behind him. "What did you say?"

The view of his own broken reflection and black above him stayed in his view. He thought that perhaps the black figure wasn't going to respond, that maybe all of this was just a manifestation for his worries about Chica and everyone that he'd met thus far. Or maybe, just maybe, he wasn't asking the black figure the right questions.

"Why is all of this happening?" Foxy asked.

And suddenly, his view changed. Ten objects suddenly appeared in front of him, his reflection and the black figure's reflection still quivering in the background. There were two horizontal rows, each row containing five objects. The farthest object to the left was a number; 1. To the right of that was what Foxy's brain told him was "The Letter B." However, it was much darker than the 1, making it look like this: **B**

Continuing along the left row, the third object was a steel rod pointing downwards. The tip of it was pointed, and the edges looked sharp enough to easily cut through a tough object. Some sort of unseen light reflection bounced off of the rod, causing it to glitter. There was a brown hilt at the top of the rod as well, somewhere to hold it so that the sharpness of the metal didn't puncture the skin of whoever was holding the rod. Immediately, a word that was only partially familiar to Foxy shook in his head; _sword._

Next to the sword was a shadowy blob. It held no absolute shape. It quivered just as much as Foxy's broken reflection behind it did. The edges of it seemed to be turning as well, and it took Foxy a moment to realize that, whatever this thing was, it was rotating from an axis located in the middle of it. It was like the rotation of Earth, something he'd heard a few scattered kids at the Pizzeria mention once or twice. But Foxy had no idea what they'd been talking about; the Earth felt fine and sturdy under his then-metallic feet.

The next object was a top view of a blooming flower. The petals of it were a stunning pink, and they seemed to glow from some sort of reflected light just as the sword did. The center of the flower was a pure, bright yellow, one that reminded Foxy of a radiant sunset. It was very thin, but he could also see that a purple string of some sorts was connected between the tip of the sword and one of the flower's bottom petals. The purple line wavered a bit, and for a moment it seemed to break. Then it was whole again, and it remained unmoving.

The next object was the first on the second row, just below the number 1. It was some sort of herb that Foxy did not recognize, although his mind (or perhaps the figure behind him) told him that the plant was one used in medicine and for treatment of people with illness or pain.

The next three objects were easy for Foxy to identify. The first was a large pile of scrap metal, something he was quite used to seeing. He also saw another purple tether attaching the pile of metal to the 1 above and to the left of it. The second was a bright light bulb, which Foxy had failed to notice before, now realizing that the light from the bulb was probably what was bouncing off the sword and flower. The third was a mask with a smile carved into it. The final however, unsettled Foxy for some reason that he couldn't rationalize. It was the shadow of a small human, one that he instantly knew had to be a child.

1, **B** , sword, shadow, flower, plant, scrap metal, light bulb, mask, child. All lined up for him to see while his broken reflection wavered on behind them. All of them, somehow, important. He didn't know how, and thought that perhaps he never would know how, but all of the objects had some sort of significance to the world he and all of the other people from other dimensions, universes, and existences had been placed into through unknown means. And perhaps, all of these thing were the keys to figuring out what was happening. Perhaps even the keys to going back home.

But the object that drew Foxy towards it the most was the 1 in the top left corner of his vision. The one seemed to speak to him, telling him that, out of all the objects that he saw, the 1 was his. It called out to him in a wordless echo, and Foxy could feel himself quivering with his reflection as the 1 began to slowly grow. All of the other objects slowly faded from his vision, but the 1 remained. It grew larger, destroying the idea that this 1 was unimportant, that the black figure was unimportant, that this dream was unimportant. All of this was important somehow. Would it help him to find a way back home? He doubted it. But he did know that, whatever happened, it would be okay so long as he had the 1. But that wasn't right either. Some crazy driven-mad part of the back of his mind told him that he did not want to- no, _could_ not- just have the 1. In order to fulfill whatever it was he had to, Foxy had to _become_ the 1.

And, with that strange thought still pounding in his head, Foxy awoke just as the moon was raising itself to the center of the sky.

 **4**

In the late hours of night, Ash and May were still awake. It was perhaps two in the morning, perhaps four, perhaps 5. Neither of them knew what time it was. All they knew was that, outside, it was still night. They also knew that someone was walking around the camp. Based on the darkness outside and heavy patting of the walking, as well as the fact that the walker had been moving around the camp in a circle, they guessed that this was Bonnie on night duty. From what May had overheard in the evening, Bonnie was to guard second, just after Spyro. This put their time frame of awakening at somewhere between two and four. Though there were Shamblers somewhere in their world, they both felt safe, both with Bonnie holding a shotgun outside, and with each other in the tent.

May had her arms wrapped around Ash, who was staring up at the top of the tent. The tent's thin fabric rustled a bit as a short, cool breeze blew past. Then, it fell silent. Ash was lost in thought, thinking about how he'd gotten to this world. He found that the last thing he remembered was going to some new region of his world, but he couldn't remember anything aside from the fact that his partner and best friend, Pikachu, a small creature known as a Pokémon with mouse-like features, a chubby yellow body, and two red spots on its face (one on each cheek), had been sitting on his shoulder. Then, he had woken up, Pikachu nowhere in sight. It had been complete luck that he'd come across May. The two of them had spent hours walking around in the forest until they'd come upon a clearing. There, they'd found Bonnie and Gilda unpacking supplies they'd found in their wanderings. They both decided that it would be best to stay in a tent together, and they had. Over the course of three days sleeping in the tent together, bodies pressed against one another, they had become close (no pun intended).

Whatever strange and quick relationship had formed from being in a world filled with undead corpse-like figures was one that Ash could live with. It was a basic, kiddish one as well. They'd kiss, hug, talk, and, at night, just snuggle next to each other. Both of them had decided that taking whatever relationship they had going on to another level would be a bad idea, given that, in the backs of both of their minds, they had a feeling that they wouldn't be together for long. Some falling out would occur, some separation may happen, and it would end. But, for now, they took comfort in each other's arms under the faint, distorted moonlight of the sky above their new alien world.

Ash couldn't believe that it had been a mere forty-eight hours since Spyro had arrived at camp. He specifically singled Spyro out because of the strangely interesting personality the dragon had. Outwardly, he seemed optimistic about the situation that they were in. Ash liked that optimism. It gave him a hope he never thought he'd feel again. He could see that it also gave May hope too. The entranced way in which she listened to Spyro speak about a past life, the way she smiled when he showed hope upon his protruding mouth with one just like hers; it was easy to see that Spyro's optimism was rubbing off on her. And Ash was thankful for it. For the twenty-four hours or so that their quartets were not a combined group of eight strong, May had been sulky. Her walking had been slow and her eyes had been dull. Ash guessed that her head was filled with thoughts about her younger brother, Max, and what might be happening to him if he too were in this wretched world. He himself was worried about Pikachu, Brock, Misty, all the people he'd had battles with. Hell, even meeting Jessie or James of Team Rocket, and organization bent on capturing powerful Pokémon to use for their own diabolical purposes, including Ash's Pikachu, would at least give him more people he knew. And, though he was still worried about friends and enemies alike, Spyro's confidence that they would all make it through this and figure out what was going on had given him hope. But he was mostly glad that May was happy.

But Foxy… he was bad news. And he thought May was probably thinking the same thing. These suspicions were confirmed when May sat up, breaking apart the embrace that Ash's arms had on her thin body. She looked at him, her eyes blazing with wakefulness, and Ash had a feeling that neither of them would be sleeping that night. "Does Foxy bother you?" May asked, her shining blue eyes staring directly into Ash's brown ones.

At first, Ash had no idea how to respond. The question had been so sudden and so like his own thoughts that he was a bit caught off-guard by it. Nevertheless, after a few seconds of thinking, he replied, "Kind of, yeah."

Silence fell upon the tent like snow. Only the outer sounds of leaves in the light breeze and Bonnie circling the campsite broke it. Finally, Ash continued to speak. "I mean," he considered, "it's just something about him that bothers me. I don't really know if I can pin down what it is. Maybe it's just his sternness. Maybe it's just the way that he doesn't click with Gilda even though both of them are leaders. Or _were_ in Foxy's case. I dunno. I just don't know."

"Well, I know why he bothers me," May whispered. "It's the way he can think. I don't know if he's physically quick like Gilda is, but mentally? Mentally he seems like a complete machine. Not that he doesn't have any feelings or anything like that, of course he does. He mentioned somebody named China once, or something like that, and he's good friends with Bonnie, so it's not like he's unfriendly. He just… he can think quickly. He's observant. I could see it in his eyes while he was approaching camp; he knew that we were worried about that yellow-eyed whoever in the woods at least five minutes before he mentioned it. When he looked at me, I knew he could see my worry, even though I tried to hide it. I'm almost certain I _did_ hide it, he just saw right through me."

Ash considered this. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I know what'cha mean. He's just… strange. Just the way he can think so fast, the way he can observe things. It makes ya wonder how safe someone would be with him around if he didn't trust them."

"Well… well maybe it isn't so bad," May said. The tone of her voice gave Ash the impression that she was lying, both to him and herself. "Maybe it's a good thing that he's so observant. Maybe if we ever get into trouble with another group, Foxy'll be able to help. See what's coming before we can."

Ash sat up a bit in the makeshift bed he and May had made out of the raggedy blankets Gilda had given them. "You don't actually think we'll get into trouble with another group… do you?" Ash asked.

May reluctantly shrugged. For some reason, that shrug sent chills up Ash's back, as though it were a way of saying, _Yes, it's possible._ And Ash knew why. And she told him why. "Well, he and Bonnie did have that run-in with the yellow-eyed guy and he almost blew their brains out with a shotgun. So I guess it's possible. Yes, it's possible."

Ash sighed, leaning back, his head falling onto his pillow. May looked at him, concerned. She wrapped her arms around him, and he felt warm. He tried to hide the smile that was slowly crawling up his face, but it was no use. May kissed his cheek, causing him to blush. Close to four days with her, someone who had been a platonic friend for years. It wasn't easy to get used to, but it sure felt good. "Don't worry," May whispered. "We're gonna be fine."

Ash's hand rested on her upper arm. He pulled her in, his lips touching hers gently, a warm embrace between them. Ash wrapped his arms around her slim body, his hands sprawled out on her back. His heart beat faster as May lowered his head to the pillow, and he had a feeling that what was about to happen was about to happen, but did he really want it to happen, and oh Arceus what did this-?

His thoughts were interrupted and May fell back in a screech as Bonnie's shotgun sounded off outside.

 **5**

Spyro's body was wrapped around Cynder's in a soft embrace. He could feel her breath in his ear, warm and flowing like the rapids of a beautiful, gushing river. Her tail was stroking his body, warming him as he sighed. He could feel her mouth widen upon his cheek, and knew she was smiling at his pleasure. He didn't want to open his eyes and see the black forest that he knew would be waiting in the horizon of the waking world. He just wanted to feel her. To be near her. As close as this. Forever.

Cynder giggled, and Spyro pulled back, his eyes only opening in the dream. Her eyes were half-closed, and the ice-blue iris' of them chilled Spyro with anticipation. Cynder's mouth closed in on his ear, and he could feel her breath once more, breath he wanted. A strange thing to desire, really, the breath of someone, but in his waking mind, he knew what that meant. Breath meant life. Could she truly be dead? No. He thought not.

And, in the mind's eye of his sleeping figure, she wasn't. She was just as alive as he was. She was twining her body around his, allowing him to hold her as he was, and, in the midst of it all, whispering into his ear softly, quietly, so quiet that the wind seemed to pick it up and carry it away, words never to be heard again by a waking creature; "Love me."

And he wanted to.

 _BLAM!_

Cynder's face disappeared in a sudden blink. Spyro sat up, breathing heavily. He heard a shout from outside his tent. He could hear someone zipping their tent up. Could hear shouts of something inaudible. Spyro was out of his tent in a flash. What he saw chilled him in the complete opposite way Cynder had in his dreams. This was a chill of absolute fear.

Bonnie held the shotgun his hands, and was firing into a crowd of Shamblers. There were at least two dozen of them moseying along, making their way into the camp to munch on some soft, living flesh. Leading the Shamblers was a matted, dirty chicken-looking thing. It was almost as tall as Bonnie, a dirt-smeared apron upon its chest, unidentifiable words written across it in a print form Spyro didn't recognize. The word "Let's" was visible, but the rest had been demolished by nature. Gilda was to the left of him, claws out, golden eyes glaring in determination. Foxy stood to his right, no fight in him. He seemed to be drained of all his strength, evident mostly when he feel to his knees, looking awestruck at the situation.

It took Spyro a moment to realize that the chicken-thing was not a Shambler. Rather, whoever it was, they were fleeing from them like a small bird from a giant falcon. Or perhaps a giant falcon from a large gang of tiny birds. Either way, they were alive and running. The only weapon they had on them was a sharpened stick (though the point at the end was so dull that it probably wouldn't pierce a Shambler's head if the figure even tried) and a tiny knife in the hand that was not armed with the stick. And, suddenly, based on everything Foxy had told him and what this figure looked like, he knew exactly who this was. It wasn't long before his suspicions were confirmed by Bonnie.

"CHICA!" Bonnie shouted, a shotgun bullet whizzing through the air and blowing off a Shambler's wrinkly scalp. "C'MON, CHICA _MOVE!"_

"I'M TRYING!" Chica shouted. Just as she did so, she tripped and feel, her legs unraveling behind her. It took no time for a Shambler to grab one and start pulling her into the crowd.

This action caused Foxy to suddenly jump. He ran forward just as Spyro was about to jump up, swoop in, and take the Shambler's head off. Spyro, however, didn't get a chance to do a thing like that. He was too busy watching in awe as Foxy interjected himself into the fray. He looked like a weighed-down rag doll as his entire body collapsed onto the Shambler. The Shambler had no time to protest; Foxy's hook had already sunk deep into the back of its skull, cutting off its ability to think, move, and live.

Foxy stood, slashing at another Shambler. Chica stood as well, and for the first time (at least, based on her reaction, Spyro believed it to be the first time), she saw that Foxy was with them. "F… Foxy!?"

"GO!" Foxy shouted, his hook slitting open another Shambler skull. Chica milled around for a few moments longer, her face a mask of shock and awe that she'd found Foxy in this strange world. Spyro couldn't help but think that, if she didn't get moving soon, a Shambler's teeth would sink into her skull and that would be the end of her and Foxy's little reunion. And it almost was. A Shambler lunged at her, almost catching her by the side. Spyro had no time to react as Chica stepped back, uttered a tiny shriek, and then drilled her dull stick up through the Shambler's chin. The end of the stick she'd stuck it with drilled its way up to the top of its skull. At first, Spyro thought this nearly impossible, given it was just a dull stick. Then again, he didn't know how the Shamblers worked and wouldn't be toting the "Shambler Know It All" title around any time soon. What he did know was that there was no chance in hell Chica would be able to pull that stick from the thing's skull. And he was right. She tried to tug for a moment, realized she wouldn't be able to get it out, and retreated, leaving it in the dead thing's rotten skull.

Through those few seconds, Foxy and Bonnie had taken care of most of the Shamblers. Spyro watched, unable to will himself into the battle, as Gilda dropped down from the sky, picking up a Shambler by the armpits. It protested, clawing at the air and snapping its jaws at nothing. A small smile crossed Gilda's mouth as she threw the Shambler at the tree adjacent to their camp. There was a loud smack, like a watermelon exploding, as the head created a red splat on the side of the tree. Gilda looked at her work, pride and disgust both trying to take center stage in her eyes. Then, Spyro head the scream.

In a flash, before he knew if it was Gumball or Anais who had shouted, Spyro had knocked two Shamblers away from the entrance of their tent. They both growled in protest, said growling ending quickly as Spyro's claws raked their skulls. Then, they were still. His claws still in the heads of the dead things, Spyro's head turned towards the tent. He took himself out of the flesh. He sprinted over to the entrance, an admittedly pointless idea since the zipper was only a few feet from him. But, nonetheless, he wanted to make sure that some of the few survivors he had started his time here with were still left in one piece.

He unzipped the tent, and two simultaneous shrieks exited the tent. Spyro popped his head in, his eyes fixed on the two children, one a blue cat and one a pink rabbit, huddled together in the tent. After a moment of looking at him, the children looked at each other, then back at him. Gumball broke the embrace and stood. He wiped a hand on his brow, uttering a comical "Whoo!" as he did so, something that would be funny under less life-threatening circumstances. Unless it was Spyro. He had to stifle a bit of laughter at the kid's out of place comical utterance, and he hoped he'd taken his head out from the tent before Gumball could see that a small smile was on Spyro's face. He felt like a child, almost laughing at something so simplistic and unfunny. It was the situation; eating at him, making his sense of humor as mushy as a Shambler brain. _Scrambled Shamblers,_ Spyro suddenly thought, and he couldn't help from bursting into laughter.

 **6**

When all of the Shamblers were dead, Foxy turned back towards her. He wanted to make sure that his eyes were not deceiving him, that her presence here was not a dream. Surely he was awake, correct? He'd heard Bonnie yell her name, hadn't he? So yes. Yes this was real. And Foxy's new heart beat faster at the prospect that three out of the four of their little group from before was finally back together again. Now all they needed was Freddy, and at the rate new people kept finding them and they kept finding new people, that was bound to be within a week at the most. Or something like it, at least.

Seeing her stand there, drenched in the blood of dead Shamblers, her apron that normally depicted the words "Let's Eat," had been smeared with gore and grime, making the words obsolete. Instead, it looked like a regular white apron. Chica herself didn't look like… well, herself. It was a given that Foxy assumed he should have seen coming the moment he saw her, but he hadn't. Her purple eyes were much brighter than they had been prior to her unrobotification ( _Is that even a word?_ Foxy thought. _Probably not._ ), her beak was a bit smaller and more curved at the edges, and she was a bit thinner. In her original animatronic form, Chica looked as though she ate everything she came across. She still looked obese, albeit much less so. The new feathers she'd gained that were spread across the entirety of her body were ruffled up in a maddened craze. Her eyes were ablaze with fright from the Shamblers and relief at finding other people.

All of that observation Foxy had made in the three seconds it took for her to run over and embrace him. He was a bit shocked at first, not that she had hugged him- he'd expected that much when he met them- but at how soft the feathers around her body were. They reminded Foxy of the blanket that was waiting for him back in his tent, the blanket that his head had been on as Chica's head flashed through his minds dozens upon dozens of times in the past three, almost four, days. But now that blanket and Chica's softness would be etched together in his mind as one single beauty. At least until his sleepy mind began to think rationally and just be glad that Chica had found his way to him.

And then he felt something that he'd never expected. The shoulder where Chica's head was resting in her warm, feathery embrace was now wet. He pulled away, wondering if she'd been, God forbid _bit_ , on the face during her escape. But no; she was crying. And just that caused his eyes to water with happiness as well. "I… I'm sorry," Chica mumbled, so much so that the words were almost incoherent. "I just… missed…"

She trailed off, her large arms wrapping back around Foxy's thin body. He hugged her back, cautiously aware of the angle of his hook as not to impale her. "Oh, Chica," he mumbled. "I missed… you're alive."

Foxy closed his eyes and let his tears run down his cheeks. Happiness welled in him while he ran his hand along Chica's back. Fox and chicken; wouldn't Spyro be surprised. Foxy opened his eyes to look around at the people crowded around them. He saw Bonnie, his arms crossed, the shotgun slung behind his back, a small smile across his face. He saw Ash slowly take May's hand, neither of their eyes leaving his. Spyro was walking out of the woods, Gumball on one side of him, Anais on the other. All three of their eyes widened in shock as they saw the two in their embrace. Spyro's seemed to be more in "Well, I guess she really _does_ like you, huh?" while the children seemed shocked that Foxy had actually found her.

Then Foxy's eyes drifted to the one figure whose reaction to this event shocked him the most. Gilda stood on all fours, a frown on her face, her eyes looking down at the ground that housed the foundation of their camp. Foxy didn't need to look anymore to see that she was holding back tears, images of Greta and her in an embrace probably going through her mind. Foxy wanted to go over and tell her that, even though it seemed like she wouldn't find her now, she would someday. She would. If it was meant to be by some sort of fate, then it had to be so.

But Chica's grip was too strong, and Foxy doubted if what he would tell her would be the truth or a lie to keep her okay.

 **7**

Gilda couldn't sleep.

She tossed and turned as the moon slowly began its decent from the sky. She knew that, at any moment, Bonnie would unzip the tent, whisper her name, and she would be outside, looking into the night air, feeling the soft breeze that had picked up only a few minutes before Chica had run into camp with a horde of Shamblers on her trail, guarding, looking for the yellow-eyed stranger that had probably moved on.

But no; there would be no more sleep for her tonight. Not after Chica came barreling into camp. Not after Foxy and her had hugged and had cried together. Not after it had been unanimously decided that Foxy's tent would get two more blankets and Chica would stay in there with him. The tents weren't too small, so two adults sharing one still allowed for them to have plenty of room. Gilda only wished that she were sharing her tent with someone else. If only… if only.

Greta kept flashing into her mind, and she couldn't force the face of her past friend present lover out of her head. She just wanted to see her, even if for a moment. Well, no, that wasn't true. She was lying to herself, as she usually was. Everything was going to be okay; lie. She would figure out what was going on; lie. She was going to see Greta again, see her alive again; lie. Lies, lies, lies. Whole heaping, stinking bunches of lies.

Gilda sat up. She rested her golden eyes on the tent zipper, intent on greeting Bonnie when he entered. He'd be surprised, sure… or maybe he wouldn't be. With ears as big as his, he would definitely be able to hear her as she tossed and turned and thought on through the cold hours of the night. How she wished she were alone with her thoughts, and if not alone, then alone with Greta. What she'd give to be alone with Greta again. To go back to when they'd first been making scones, go back to the first time that beautiful griffin had laid her precious beak against hers. It had been so warm, such a fiery embrace of their mouths. Gilda never wanted it to stop. She just wanted to keep kissing her, to kiss her into infinity, because when their lips parted the moment would be over, and Gilda just couldn't give up that moment, wouldn't give up that moment, for anything in the world.

 _Ugh, stop thinking like such a dweeb,_ she scolded herself. _Tough it out!_

The flap of her tent shifted, and she tensed, expecting Bonnie's shadow to appear only a moment later, for his hand to reach up and unzip the tent, for him to whisper her name but only get halfway through because she was already up and looked ready to make hell pay. But no; no such elaborate fantasies would come true. It was false, merely the wind rustling the object. Gilda sighed, laying her had back down on her makeshift pillow that was her scrunched-up blanket.

What was wrong with her? Or was there anything wrong with her? Was it so wrong to be on guard all the time? At this point, probably not. Otherwise one of the Shamblers she had taken out would have bitten someone for sure, and they'd have another Nicole Watterson incident like they'd had on the first day. And Gilda wanted to make sure that as least people as possible died.

But then there was the subject of Foxy. She felt sure that he was trying to take over. It was as though it were programmed into her entire body, especially in her brain, that this was his goal. It was some kind of vibe that he gave off, something that didn't settle right with her. She thought it may have been how observant he was, how he'd figured out she was upset about something in her past- _someone_ in her past- without so much as her dropping a hint. Maybe it had just been because of the situation that they were all being forced to live through, but still… still.

Foxy probably wasn't trying to take over. It was probably just how observant he was that made her nervous. And a good quality for a leader is observance. Knowing what to do. Knowing for sure when something is right or wrong, when a good or bad idea is being presented instead of the opposite. Knowing when someone is lying, when someone can't be trusted, when someone _can_ be trusted. A switch clicked in Gilda's brain, and she realized for certain what it was that specifically bothered her about Foxy. He was a better leader than she was, and he didn't even know it. Had it not been for him, they wouldn't have the amount of weapons and other assorted supplies that they had. Bonnie wouldn't have the shotgun that was so loud that it would easily warn everyone in camp of a danger, allowing them all to stay alive and to fight off Shamblers. And it was damn effective too; when she'd first walked out of the tent, she'd seen Bonnie knock the skulls out of two Shamblers that were standing there, one in front of the other. Like fuckin' dominos.

And it came to her then, the one thing that was worse than Foxy being a natural leader and him not even being able to see it. What if the group began to favor him over her? It wasn't improbable. After all, he had complete favor with six out of nine members of their group. He'd saved Gumball and Anais' lives, he'd met up with Spyro within an hour of their worlds going to shit, and he'd known Bonnie and Chica prior to all of them stepping into this foreign world. He had more of a chance at becoming more popular than she was with them by a long shot. He had a better chance of becoming the group's permanent leader than she did. And, of course, there was the worst part. That one piece of truth that she still wasn't willing to let herself except. That she might _want_ him to be the group's leader.

He was, after all, a lot more competent than she was. Would she truly let her arrogance get in the way of the group? No. She couldn't do that. She knew she could get tempered at some points, probably due to how she'd been raised in a rotten city that was practically this world with a few more luxuries and less of a chance of death. And she knew that it would be harder to control her temper as time went on, and as the chance of finding Greta began to dwindle… and dwindle… and dwindle…

But no. She couldn't just give up her leadership without giving some thought to it. She had to think through what she was starting to consider; that perhaps she wasn't that cut out for the job, that Foxy might have been a much better choice than she was. His golden eyes sparkling in the sunlight, a determined look and his face as he marched the group onwards to a better, closer life. She could see it now. But she didn't know if she too would be a part of that.

And, before her thoughts could move farther from where they were, Gilda was asleep. She had no idea that Bonnie had come into her tent, had seen her tossing and turning from nightmares she would not remember in the morning, and had decided to guard the rest of the night. She was shocked when she woke up to small slits of sunlight glinting through her translucent tent.

 **8**

Day four.

The rays of sunlight that shone into Gilda's tent and woke her up with a start also woke up Foxy and Chica. Foxy's hooked arm was wrapped around Chica's corpulent body, his muzzle bowed so that he was able to snuggle close to her. She was facing him, and as Foxy awoke he watched, transfixed, as her eyelids fluttered as she awoke. Foxy could feel his heart beating faster, and for one incredible instant, he had to urge to kiss her. He also felt another urge, something unidentifiable yet strong, pulling him towards her.

She opened her eyes, a smile forming on her beak, causing both feelings to coexist as one, and Foxy couldn't control the smile that he gave back to her. Then, he leaned in, reforming his jaws as much as he could. He planted a short kiss on Chica's forehead. A red blush formed on her face, and before Foxy could wonder how her feathers could turn red from blushing, she'd pulled her in with her strength, and her beak was touching his mouth in a soft and supple way. He embraced this, tightening his hold around Chica, kissing her back. He didn't want to let go, didn't want to be the one to stop, didn't want the moment to be over. And he realized with a pang of guilt just how Gilda must feel, not being able to do this every day with the one she loved. And Foxy did think he loved Chica; just the way that she made his heart beat, the way she felt on his skin, made him think he loved her.

Oh, yes, he loved her. He didn't want to let go of the moment, but it had gone. She pulled away from him, her loving eyes looking into his. They both smiled, knowing that, in a world like the one they both came from, they would never have done that. That was something, at least, that was special about this world, no matter how much of a hellish nightmare it truly was; it brought them closer than they ever had been before.

"We should probably see who else is up," Chica suggested, pushing herself up into a sitting position. The way in which the sunlight danced off of her yellow shoulder only made Foxy love her even more. He wanted to do something with her, but he didn't really know what it was. He thought that perhaps a living creature like Spyro or Gilda might know, but he knew it was something he couldn't talk about with the kids. That was just instinctual.

Chica unzipped the tent just as Foxy lifted the blankets from himself. Chica stepped out into the pale morning where the sun blazed like an unstoppable flame, and Foxy followed suit a few moments later. He stood by Chica's side, gazing up into the new morning. It was so much more beautiful, the sun rising in the sky, when he was watching it with someone he loved. He took Chica's hand without thinking about it. He looked at her just as her eyes met his. Oh, yes, he most certainly loved her.

The moment was broken by the sound of a tent being zipped up. Foxy turned his head, as did Chica, as they both watched Gilda stumble from her tent. She looked around wildly, searching for someone. Her eyes fell on Foxy and Chica for a moment, and it only took that moment for Foxy to see the jealousy in her eyes. He had no idea if Chica had seen it, but he assumed not, given that she said, "Gilda, what is it?"

Gilda looked at them, wild panic spreading across her face. "Who was on watch last night?" she demanded. "Bonnie was supposed to wake me up, where the hell is he!?"

"I'm right here," Bonnie responded, coming up from behind her tent. His sudden presence caused Gilda to jump, her wings opening, her body swiveling towards the purple-blue rabbit, her claws unsheathed in a gesture of both defense and battle.

Bonnie slung his shotgun around his back, holding his hands out in a pleading gesture. "Woah, don't go all cranky," he said. "I only stayed on watch to help you."

"To help me!" Gilda shouted, exasperated. "How does keeping me asleep when Shamblers could be anywhere around out campsite _help_ me?"

"Well, I couldn't just wake you," Bonnie protested. "You were tossing and mumbling in your sleep. You just didn't seem okay, Gilda. So I let you sleep."

"Oh please, I could have taken care of it. A tired guard like you would probably get us all kill-."

"That's enough!" Foxy shouted. He heard a shift from Ash and May's tent, but he ignored it as he approached the bickering duo.

"Bonnie," Foxy said as he got closer to the two of them. "It was an unwise decision to let Gilda sleep. You know she wants to put the safety of this group before anything more than any of us do. You and I both know she's the best leader here and the best one to guard."

Foxy turned his attention to Gilda. "Gilda," he said. "Bonnie only meant well in his actions. Though his intentions could have harmed the group and he should have checked in with somebody prior to making his decision, no harm's come about what he did. He is in the wrong, but there is no reason to get angry if nothing went wrong. But he will _not_ do that again." Foxy flashed Bonnie a warning gaze. "Right?"

Bonnie was silent, speechless, for a moment. Foxy felt his heartbeat slow down while the seconds seemed to tick by in a slow and endless current. He had no idea where that had come from; it just seemed like the right thing to say. And, apparently, it had been. Because, after a few seconds, Bonnie nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you're right, I won't do this again. I… Gilda, I'm sorry. I should have woken you up."

Foxy nodded his approval. Then, he looked over at Gilda. "Is everything okay now?"

Gilda's sharp eyes pierced Foxy's, telling him that, no, not everything was okay. "Sure," Gilda responded, not taking her eyes from Foxy's face. "Can I talk to you for one moment alone?"

Foxy looked back over to Chica, who was standing awkwardly adjacent to the entrance of their tent. "I'll be back," Foxy said, and in response Chica smiled.

Foxy caught Gilda rolling her eyes at Chica's smile as she padded away, Foxy close behind her. After about thirty paces, Gilda whirled around. "Will you just stop it?"

"Gilda, if you don't want me to be leader, good," Foxy said. "I don't want to be."

"Then why do you keep meddling in stuff that I can take care of, huh? Why is it that you feel the need to stick your snout into every little thing happening here? Because you want to be leader; that's why. Well, guess what, smart ass? I'm not letting you be the leader. No dweeb like you is gonna lead my people. No dweeb like _you_."

Foxy paused for a moment, quickly gathering up a response in his mind, one that would make Gilda see that he had no intention of leading any sort of group in this world. "I wasn't meddling," he said. "I was trying to help. I know you think that you have everything under control, but the truth of the matter is that you don't. No leader can ever have full control. The group needs to come together, to work with one another. I know it's hard to grasp, and even harder to put into action, but every leader needs some help once and a while. It doesn't make you a bad leader and it doesn't mean someone's after your title. It just means someone wants to help."

Anger flared in Gilda's eyes. With a small huff, she stormed off.

 **Author's Note: Not the most exciting of chapters, I know, but hopefully it was worth the wait. The next chapter is one that I am really excited to write, as it's going to focus more on some of the issues brought up near the end of this chapter.**

 **Until next time!**


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